The Tudors
by Sarabibliomania
Summary: People rule through their bodies or their minds but you … my dear, sweet Charlotte shall rule through your heart. Men will live and die in the name of it. Will fear its greatness, its power and one day … one day you will be more powerful then the Queen of England … all because of the greatness of your heart.
1. Chapter 1

Hello, everyone. My name is Sara and this is my third fanfiction (in writing order).

I am not sure when I first started planning this fanfiction but it started out drastically different from where I started and took on a new life that was not what I at all planned but I'm very pleased and satisfied with where it ended up.

Several things:

I do not own anything. This is just a brilliant and wonderful TV created and written by Michael Hirst that is based on true events. I just took those events and created my own character, relationships and storyline within them.

I have planned out the story from beginning to end and there are very few details that I am not aware of or have yet to figure out. This means that if you have an issue with how something is going or where the plot is headed I apologize but I am not going to change it as it is my story and I am very happy with how it turned out.

I have played very close attention to the details of the show – watching each episode as I write to get all the facial expressions and nuances down – but some may be changed to help suit the story though the main plotline and occurrences are the same.

The details of the show are historically accurate to the show. If a certain character dies in the show at a certain point but a different point in actual history, I follow how the show did it.

The character might get some flak for being a "Mary Sue" but if you read deeper into the story and keep with it then you can for yourself realize that she is actually a flawed person who makes mistakes and has fears just like everyone else. It's all in the character development and subtleties.

There are several recurring themes throughout the story that might start in episode one and then finish in a later episode. As I understand that they may be hard to keep track of, I will post a chapter after I'm finished writing it detailing all the recurring themes in case you missed some.

This is a love triangle, but not a tradition one in that it follows a proper formula introduced by young adult writers. For my writings I have broken out of that formula and I hope that you are satisfied with how it ended up as it stays true to the characters and their relationships with each other.

In addition to it being a love triangle, it has two lesser known romances branched off that are not exactly traditional either and only lie in hints that you will have to look into and draw your own conclusions from.

My character isn't in every scene as it wouldn't be historically accurate or true to her character for her to be in council or during the rebellion so I encourage you to watch the series to help you fill in the missing scenes.

Most of the chapters are roughly the same length but some may be longer or shorter depending on how active she is in each chapter.

Because of the historical differences of this fanfiction I have tirelessly tracked down many dresses for the character and will be posting them in a chapter following each written one which will show which costumes or jewelry she wore during a certain scene for those curious and for those who don't care, you may skip that chapter. (EDIT: I have yet to organize the dresses as I would like or find a way to show them to you so for now this part will be omitted until I figure it out.)

I am more than willing to answer any questions you have about the series, characters or plots so feel free to send me a message or something with your questions and I will be more than happy to answer them for you. But if you are snarky to me, expect some snarky in return.

I am a great lover of history and the Tudor time period is probably the most researched and beloved era for me and in particular I am a great lover of Anne Boleyn. She is my historical idol and meeting her would have been one of my greatest dreams come true. In addition to this I am a big fan of Natalie Dormer and even received an autographed picture from her which I will post a photo of if you're interested along with instructions on how to get your own autographed photo.

I have a plan to take down all of my stories within a month or two for an insane edit and reorganizing then reposting them to try and get a different audience so until then I'll be posting all the chapters I have and hopefully getting some feedback that would help push me to finish off the chapters. For now feel free to enjoy the unedited version of this story until it's perfected and including with her fashion for each scene.

Hope to hear from you all soon and I hope you enjoy my story. Cheers!


	2. 11 In Cold Blood

**1.1 In Cold Blood (11)**

I pressed down on the key and a sweet note shattered the cool morning air. I pressed the one next to it, rewarded with a sharper sound that lingered on the ending of the first one as it faded. I laid my fingers delicately over the keys, the smooth, hardened feel cold underneath my touch and I alternated my weight over them. The keys echoed into one another, sharpened and softened and lingering in the air like a sweetened memory. The movements of my fingers scattered the shattered shadows over the keys, the light and faded darkness imprinted over it in a ghostly movement. The wind grazed through the open window and dusted its touch through my hair, the branches on the tree outside shifting and their leaves stitching in and out of each other's touch. I stilled my fingers, their profile bent in the memory of their movement, the breeze cool and brushing its feel through my hair and dancing a strand over the side of my face. The scent of apples weaved its bite through the wind and dusted through the air with the memory and allure of sweetness. Hoof beats echoed lowly on the stone with stiff pronouncement and I stood from my stool, the folds of my dress catching and folding against the back of my legs and leaving them either cushioned or bare. A horse with its rider stenciled itself through the delicate cut of the hedges, the darkness of them catching off the light and illuminating the edges of him.  
"Grace, someone's here," I said, my fingers twisted over the edges of the harpsichord and the tiny details of it alternated rough and smooth under my touch. Fabric rustled and rushed as she stood and half ran over, her bare footsteps softly broken over the floor boards. The folds of her dress caught around the edges of the harpsichord and blending into the fabric of mine, her hair loose and full over her shoulder, the faded light burying itself in the strands. The steps of the horse stilled and the rider climbed off, disappearing into the shape of the hedges, darts of him still clearing their way between the leaves.  
"Who do you think it is?" Grace asked, leaning closer to the window, her hair dangling in the gleam of the sun shone through it.  
"I do not know," I replied and re-angled the tilt of my head, my hair sweeping over the side of face and down over my shoulders like a cascade of waves. The horse shifted its steps on the stone, its tail tossed with a sharp movement that clashed against the low hanging leaves and branches on the hedge. I looked over at Grace whose gaze had shifted over to me, her blue eyes beginning to sparkle with the prospect of excitement unburdening itself from her chest and she grabbed at my hand, pulling me around the stool and across the room. The floorboards were warm under my feet, the sunlight through the windows imprinting their warm touch over the wood and losing itself into the threads of the rug. The light shone more brightly in the hall, the designs in the glass dancing its pattern of light and shade across the floor and walls. Voices indistinctly sounded from below, the walls carrying their sound but softening and removing any actual words or distinction from them. She pulled me to the railing, the smoothness of the wood sliding between my palms and along and between my fingers. The flicker of the candles in the chandelier thickened and blurred in the corner of my eyesight, darkening every other detail with a sharpened edge. The back of Papa's head was visible, the thinning brown strands carefully swept over his head with specks of gray sprinkled through as a mild reminder to his age. The rider stood in front of him, only bare hints to the details of who he was glimpsed around the frame of Papa. Their voices continued lowly, the shape of their words like shadows in the air, visible but unable to catch a grip on. Grace leaned over the rail, the shape of it shifting into the folds over her dress and gathering it awkwardly, her hair loosely hanging in the air with the ends of it sprung and curled delicately. She pulled back, the creases of her gown smoothing out and blending back into the straightened lines of her skirt and slipped her hand back into mine, the elegant curve of her nails finding their way into the lines on my palm. She drew me away from the railing and down the hallway, our shadows shifting in misshape over the walls and along the carpeted floor, the transition of light and darkness playing tricks over the intricate colors and patterns embroidered into it. The sound of my bare feet muffled itself amongst the threads of the carpeted steps, the light slanted around the corners of the stairs and cutting dangerously. The steps disappeared and smoothed out into the wide plains of the floor, their voices louder now and almost bearing a distinction of words. Grace tugged me around the corner, her fingers grazing over the lines and patterns engraved into the wood and her face catching the light that shone in fade around the corner. She turned around it, straightening and pulling at the side of her skirt as it fell fuller and delicately smoothed with the edges barely dusting over the tops of her feet. I followed along behind her, our clasped hands catching into the miniscule wrinkles at the back of her skirt. Papa turned from where he was standing with the rider, the graying strands of hair swept back from his forehead and the lines of his face deeply and warmly set with the shape of the smile on his lips.  
"Ah, girls," He greeted, his smile widening and drawing every line of his face into it. "Please don't be shy." He held out his hand, the cuff of his shirt dangling over his wrist and softening the lines deeply carved into his skin. Grace took another step in the room and dropped her hand from mine, small crescent shapes from her nails embedded through my palm in deepened white that faded out into the paleness of my skin.  
"I would like you to meet an old friend of mine. Mr. Thomas Cromwell," he said, sweeping back his hand and indicating the man in front of him, the hang of his cloak flaring out and embracing the air around him with a sweep of crystallized dust catching the light. I turned to the Mr. Cromwell, the light from the many windows darkening the edges around him and something deep and dark inside of me seemed to crumble and break. He was tall, the edges around him sketching its touch along the carpet and awkwardly up the wall, his hair dark and curled over his head and his eyes a faded blend of green and blue that seemed to draw me up and then down into a darkness and unfamiliarity that tensed it's terror on every inch of my skin. I swallowed hard, every part of me tensed and alert with a feeling that stirred darkly in my chest and blanketed over my skin with an unnerving tremble.  
"Ladies," he said, his voice rough and soft, deep and light, warm and cold, bowing somewhat, the light shimmered through his hair and briefly lining it silver. I couldn't breathe, a vice in my chest that constricted the movement and the natural feel, encasing it with whatever I couldn't explain or put a name to.  
"Mr. Cromwell," Grace politely greeted, gathering the edges of her skirt between her fingers and curtseying, the folds of her skin billowing out and brushing over the floor with a hushed rasp. I couldn't move, I was frozen, held in place and in time with everything around me dulled and insignificant with only the lines and edges of him in my heart and in my mind, carved in and imprinted forever and always …  
"Charlotte?" Papa asked quietly with a warm kindness and I glanced over at him, his eyes confused and his brows drawn over them thickly. I dropped into a curtsy, the hem of my dress kissing the floor and stirring a light fall of dust that hung around me like diamonds turned and frozen in the light.  
"Mr. Cromwell," I murmured, rising up again and my eyes lowered, thin desperation lacing itself through my veins to look up at him but propriety coursing through and reminding me that it wasn't polite.  
"Thomas and I used to be in the army together, didn't we?" Papa asked, turning to him and his cloak swirled behind him in memorization.  
"Yes, a long time ago," Thomas agreed, with a chuckle to his voice that paralyzed me further, every part of me hurting and yet healed.  
"So … now that you've met how about you girls run along and let Mr. Cromwell and I catch up?" Papa suggested, turned back and the kindness in his voice almost breaking down around the gentle command in it.  
"Yes, Papa," Grace said obediently, her fingers again entwined through mine and she pulled me away, my feet turning on the floor and something heavy in my chest trying to keep frozen where I stood. I turned back to look over my shoulder, the curl of my hair blurring over my face and through it he still stood, every detail burying itself through my mind and through my heart, drawing in raw intensity and yearning, an ache and a pain that tore through me with a force that terrified and broke me with something unknown, wonderful and terrible …  
Wind blew its way through the hedges and skimmed it's touch through and along the trees with a howl that seemed to echo with a loneliness that ached inside me. The trees shifted in it, the branches dancing and cutting through the moonlight that brightly shone across the carpet and the very edges of the bed. I pulled the quilt farther up around my shoulders and to my neck, the warmth and weight like a reassurance against the thoughts of ghosts and nightmares William liked to tease me with. I rolled over, curled closer to where Grace laid, the gold of her hair splayed over her pillow in disarray and her eyes closed, her breaths peacefully stirring over her lips and through her chest. I nestled my head closer to hers, the smoothness of the strands under my face and along my neck and her breaths a quiet peace in the back of my mind. I entangled my fingers in the pillow, catching along the strands and she stirred somewhat, nestling her face against the fabric.  
"What is it?" She quietly asked, her voice roughened with sleep and her eyes still closed with the sense that she was still lost in it.  
"What did you think of Mr. Cromwell?" I whispered, tucking my feet closer beneath me in an attempt to warm them, a soft rushing built in my chest at the name and prospect of what he stirred in me. Grace adjusted herself against the pillow again, her eyes still closed and her eyelashes curling shadows across her cheek.  
"Did not see him for very long," she pointed out, her words thick and blending in such a way that made deciphering them difficult. "Handsome though." I nodded, shifting closer and my legs pressed against the warmth of hers, my fingers loosely entangled into hers on the sheet. She also moved closer, her forehead brushed against mine and the lightness of her hair blending and weaved through the darkness of my own.  
"What did you think?" She mumbled her breath gently warm against my cheek. The wind howled mournfully, the shattered shadows dancing over the floor and over my vision in tatters. Every detail of him unwound itself in my memory, inking out around and together until it sketched him out, every pronouncement born heavy and ached in my stomach. I licked my lips, words that couldn't bear weight or shape hanging on my lips with a sense of taunt and tease.  
"He was very handsome," I said, the words so hollow and so small when they echoed in the vastness of what he made me feel in my chest. She nodded the movement almost nonexistent and her head still against mine, her breaths again sunk into a peaceful rhythm. I ran my teeth along the inside of my lip, so many words and thoughts and feelings fragmented through my mind and shattering down smaller and then re piecing themselves into what had no more meaning but no less impact. "And one day I want to marry him." She didn't move, already gone and lost and my words lost and broken into the air. Unknown, wonderful and terrible. I closed my eyes, the shredded shadows faded out into darkness and everything drew itself heavy through my veins.


	3. 1 2 Simply Henry

**1.2 Simply Henry (12)**

I weaved the two flowers together, the thin touch of the stem peeling and tearing between my fingers and the petals rubbing soft on my skin. I twisted the ends of them into a knot, miniscule frays catching off the ends and shedding onto my palm. I pulled the edges tighter and the weight of the flowered crown set itself between my hands, the blades and petals stitched delicately with obvious care. I lifted it and settled it on upon my head, the feel of it embedded through my hair and almost certainly disappearing into the mass of curls.  
"How do you get it to stay together?" Grace asked, her brow furrowed and her eyes rent with frustration with the pieces of her attempted crown in tatters in her hands.  
"You have to be gentle," I said, sliding closer and the grass pulling at my skirt and fanning it over top with many folds and creases carved through it. I took the pieces from her fingers and weaved the stems together, the petals trembling in the gentleness of the wind and the movement and touch of my fingers. She watched me with concentration, the wind tousling the gold of her curls and shimmering the sunlight through it.  
"There," I declared, the pieces collapsed and yet poorly constructed with the petals bleeding against my skin with tiny feathery touch. I handed it to her and she cradled it in her hands, careful not to break it and the flowers hanging mournfully off the edges of her palms.  
"Thank you," she said and lifted it onto her own head, the blend and weave of green and pink standing out amongst the gold and twisting in my heart of the knowledge of such great beauty.  
"Mouse," William called, and I turned, the grass sweeping underneath my skirt and twisting and shattering in the movement. Williams stepped down the lawn, his heels dug deep into the smooth curve of it to keep from falling and the breeze tousling the curls across his face and softening over the lines of his face with a tender touch. He stilled several steps from us, the breeze still ceaselessly blowing and twirling the edges and lines of his jacket and shirt.  
"Papa wants to talk to you," he said, his head titled and the curls falling delicately down the curve of his neck. A pinch of worry wrestled itself into my stomach and I squinted up at him, the catch of the sunlight clipping off the trees and darkening my eyesight.  
"Do you know why?" I asked, the cut of worry broken in my voice. He shook his head, his eyebrows knotted together and crinkling the corners of his eyes. I carefully stood, the pink of my dress marred with a faded green that stretched unevenly across the skirt and wiped at the tatters of grass still embedded against the fabric. I gathered a fistful of it in my hands and stepped up the hill, the grass shifting in my footsteps and the shadows and sunlight alternated over me in a shimmer of light and darkness. I shifted the low hanging branch of a tree from my face, the leaves roughened over my skin and the dark coolness of its shade collapsing over me. I turned around to the door at the side and pushed it open, the heaviness of the wood pressed against my palms with the solid iron intricately curled over it. Smokey light coiled around me, an assortment of scents broken and pieced together in disarray.  
"Mistress Charlotte," George bowed from beside the table, cuts of meat I couldn't identify with the faded out corners from the smoke on the slab of wood. I nodded to him, my skirt caught along the bags and baskets littered around the tables and to the door deeply set into the wall. I pulled on the handle with the warmed handle slipped in my palm and stepped onto the carpeted floor, the wooden panels stretched out around and beneath it. I twisted my fingers into my skirt, my heartbeat fluttering in worry against my ribs. I slipped somewhat on the panel and rapped my knuckle against the door to Papa's office.  
"Come in," his voice sounded from inside and I pushed it open, the crackle of the fire rippling through the back of my hearing in reassurance. Papa was by his desk, several papers in his hands and he looked up, the light of the flames dancing through the strands of silver weaved through his hair.  
"Ah, Charlotte," he said with a smile and tossed the papers onto his desk where they scattered over the dozens of other papers laid there.  
"Papa," I greeted, my hands folded behind me with my fingers entangled and bobbed into a curtsey, the hem of my dress crushed and re-straightened. He walked over, a smile on his lips and his hands outstretched for me and I slid my hands into his, the lines and scars on them creased onto the skin of mine. He looked down at me, the smile on his face wrinkled up the lines of his jaw and along the skin of his eyes.  
"You are becoming quite a beautiful young woman Charlotte," he said kind, his thumb running over the back of my hand in gentle affection.  
"Thank you Papa," I responded, blush rolling up the inside of my cheeks and making them feel heated. His eyes seemed to twinkle and he released my hands until they fell back against my skirt with a rustle and he turned back to his desk.  
"I have arranged a betrothal for you," he declared, sorting the papers together so that they blended into a neat pile with the bare hint of a separation between them evident at the edges. Something awoke inside me, edges and corners pierced in my chest with things I didn't understand or wish to put a name to.  
"Betrothal, Papa?" I asked uncertainly, my fingers twisted together and the curve of my nails embedding their crescent moon marks into my palm.  
"Yes, to the eldest son of Lord John Seymour. Edward," he continued, folding up the papers inside a cloth folder and tying the string around it to enclose it inside. My mouth ran dry, a thought and a dream that had burrowed itself deep inside me quickly brought the surface and teasing underneath my skin and inside my blood with a taunt and a yearning that ate at me rawly.  
"Edward," I repeated, the name unnatural on my tongue, the feel of it tested with a sense of how often I would have to repeat it imprinting itself in my thoughts.  
"Yes," Papa said and turned from the desk and leaned against the corner of it, the folder in his hands against his chest and the flap of it loosely fallen open with the many papers inside hinted at. I swallowed with difficulty, a pain in my nose that seemed to grip tears to my eyes and further react the pain in my stomach. I turned to look over at the fire, the flames danced and alive with their soot blackening the back of the fireplace behind it with shattered darkness. The pain in my stomach swelled uncomfortably and I blinked rapidly, forcing back the burn of tears that begun to ache from being frozen.  
"When do I have the pleasure of meeting my betrothal?" I asked, turned back and forcing a smile of warmth to my lips that fell hollow and cold beneath it. "Edward."  
"Shortly, my dear," Papa assured me, again smiling with the attempted warmth and enthusiasm I poorly expressed. He set down the folder and walked over to me and pressed his lips down against my forehead, the curled strands of his beard rasped against my skin. I closed my eyes, the dampness of a tear pressed against my eyelashes and opened them again, the feel of it sliding down over my cheek and lost into my hair with only the faint wetness as a reminder that it was there. He pulled away, again smiling down at me and lightly cupped my face, his fingers entangled and lost in my hair.  
"Now, go," He encouraged, his eyes darted to the door and again back to my face. "Play with your brother and sister. We can discuss this more later."  
"Yes, Papa," I agreed and dropped back into a curtsy, my head bowed and turned away to the door, the carpet almost nonexistent and gone under my feet. The swell in my chest increased with constrict and I pulled open the door, tears rolled down my cheeks and slickened their touch behind and the door closed behind me with a sense of forbidden finality.  
The bristles of the brush cringed their touch down through my hair and along my neck, goose bumps as a result breaking forth everywhere on my skin. I took a deep breath, the feel of it constructed in my ribs and caught against the tightness of the bodice. I licked my lips, a dull sense of panic worming its way through my veins and pooling in my chest where my heartbeat lay in bated wait.  
"You're nervous aren't you?" Grace asked her hand soothing after the bristles and her voice a balance between question and fact.  
"How can you tell?" I asked, the feelings and twists inside my chest adding a catch to the edge of my voice.  
"You're not very good at hiding how you truly feel," she pointed out kindly, running the brush over the crown of my hair and down through the strands, her fingers gently following behind. I swallowed the dryness on my tongue, attempting another breath and smoothing my hands down the front of my bodice and skirt. The occasional tiny pearl sewed into my bodice roughened the feel under my hands and the silky feel of the skirt caused my fingers to slip and slide across them, twisting to gain better hold. The brush clattered somewhat as she set it down on the closed harpsichord and she gathered the thickness of my curls between her fingers and lifted it off my neck, the loss of feel encouraging my goose bumps as she let them fall again, smoothing down the sides so that they feel straight down over my neck and barely above and along my shoulders. Hoof beats echoed its presence on stone, the rattle of carriage wheels followed behind and I peered at the window, my heart beginning to race with a tensed anticipation. A team of horses weaved their hoof beats along the stone path, a carriage pulled behind with its wheels clattering with the movement and turn of the horse's movement. My heart pressed itself against the base of my throat and I tried to swallow past it, a burning in my nose and behind my eyes. Grace lay her hands on my arms and squeezed in comfort, pressing her lips against my shoulder and unknowingly encouraging the dread and sense of loss that unburdened itself in my chest.  
I ran the golden beads between my fingers, their tightened and twisted weave causing them to roll back and forth with un-relent, my touch slipping over their rounded surface. Low voices muffled together in Papa's office, a bare laugh or voice barely standing out for a moment before sinking back into the din. I licked my lips and took a deep breath, the force of it falling flat with the tightness of my bodice and stepped through the partially open door and into Papa's office. Papa was standing by his desk with a man, the weave of graying hair swept over his head and his face deeply lined with an endearing kindness set to his eyes. Papa turned as I walked in and his face lit up, the man beside him turning to see what had disrupted their conversation.  
"Charlotte," papa welcomed and set down the glass he held in his hand onto the desk amongst the papers and walked over to her I stood. I dropped into a curtsey, pinching the edges of my wide sleeves as they fell open and rose again, my heart beating in ceaseless nerves against my ribs.  
"Please, let me introduce you to Sir John Seymour," papa said, turning to the man beside him who smiled and fully turned so that he faced me, every detail of his clothing set with an elegance and grace that seemed to slip outside my fingers of understanding. I bobbed another curtsey, my fingers again entangled in my sleeves and the shape of the bracelet in my hands taking note of its presence with the rough construction of its shape.  
"She's beautiful, Sir Edward," Sir John informed papa and heat rose in my neck at the compliment, curled and relentless in the feel.  
"She is indeed," papa agreed with pride, smiling over at me and the heat now curled up into my cheeks and smothered in my chest. "And soon to be a beautiful woman."  
"Indeed, now Charlotte …," Sir John said, turning his attention back to me and his voice kind and encouraging. "…Would you like to meet your betrothed?" A dream and a wish in only the barest wisps of true formation danced in taunt behind my eyes and I forced a smile, the wisps clearly and disappearing into a truer sense of reality.  
"Nothing would please me more," I lied and Papa and Sir John smiled in response to my supposed enthusiasm and Sir John stepped back, a boy behind him revealed. Edward. My betrothed. He was taller, just above my height and his hair dark with curls like twisted waves on top of his head, his eyes blue with no hint of emotion or thought betrayed in their midst. He stiffly walked over, his hands folded behind him until he stopped a few inches from me, no movement to his face, no kindness or warmth to alleviate the difficulty of my breath locked in my chest.  
"Lady Charlotte," he said firmly and bowed, reaching for my hand and taking it between his and pressing the back of it to his lips with formality and no love.  
"Lord Edward," I said politely, my hand falling from his grasp and back into the folds of my skirt and curtseyed, my knees protesting in the frequent stiffened movement. I re-straightened, the crackle of the flames the only sound that added some sort of reality to something seeming so steeped in the sense of the unreal.  
"I made this for you," I said, the words toppled off my tongue in urgency and I held up the bracelet, the flames light glittered off the false gold of the beads. "As a sign of my great love and affection for you, my future husband." His eyes lowered to the bracelet, my hand still outstretched and a sudden fear cold in my stomach that he wouldn't take it and leave the gesture untouched and alone and cold in the air. He slowly reached out for it and took it from my hands, his fingers gently rolling the beads and shape of its entirety with disinterest and sense of cool dissatisfaction.  
"Thank you," he said with propriety and tucked it inside his jacket, the movement and barely concealed boredom and dissatisfaction behind it beat me hard in the stomach with twisted hurt.  
"How about you show Edward around the gardens, sweetheart," Papa suggested, a hint of force to his lips at the silence and coldness that had seemed to poison the air.  
"I would be honored, papa," I assured him and held out my hand to Edward who stared down at it with cold indifference before reaching out his own hand and slipping it beneath mine so that my fingers lightly lay on top. I turned in a sweep of my skirt and followed as he walked from the room, his eyes forward and the lines of his face set with no hint of emotion or feeling betrayed. The pain almost now forever present in my chest swelled and I blinked back tears that burned behind my eyes as he led me out of the room.  
My skirt whispered over the stone steps with a rasp, Edwards's hands folded behind him and his head bowed, his eyes focused on the steps and moving over the lines and rough edges of it as we stepped down. I chewed on the inside of my lip, words of attempted conversation shattering through my head with force and speed that made it impossible to gain a firm hand on them.  
"Beautiful weather, is it not my Lord?" I asked, the sun stenciling itself through the clouds and marking itself upon the path and along the hedges that lined it protectively. He looked up, glancing over at me before squinting up at the sunlight darting across the sky.  
"Yes, lovely weather," he agreed, his eyes again lowered and the silence around his words heavy and suffocating. I trailed my fingers along the edges of the hedge, the roughness of it prickled against my skin.  
"Tell me about yourself, My Lord," I attempted, my fingers running a leaf between them and their veined surface.  
"Not much to tell," he admitted, kicking at a stone with the toe of his boot as the path of stone became grass beneath our feet. Everything inside me sank and I turned my gaze down to the grass, their movement's minuscule in the breeze.  
"Did you like your gift?" I wondered, twisting my fingers in the lace cuff at my sleeve.  
"Yes, I did," he said stoically and paused his walk, his eyes darting across the grass and he knelt to a small grove of flowers, plucking a handful by their stem and re-standing, their delicate white flowers warm in the suns light.  
"Galium Saxatile," he declared and held them out to me. Warmth seeped into the swell in my chest and soothed it and I smiled, reaching out for the stem and turning it between my fingers, the petals twirled and fragile.  
"Thank you … Edward," I said, bringing the flower to my nose and inhaling the sickly sweet scent. My stomach turned over and I lowered it, still plucking my fingers over the petals and looked up at him with a small smile. He nodded, something shifted and changed in his eyes and he stepped closer, pressing his lips against mine. My entire body tensed, rigid and frozen with only the barest registration in my mind of what was going on. I slid my arms up the front of his chest and pushed myself away from him, his lips parting from mine and his fingers untangling themselves from my hair.  
"My Lord, I cannot," I protested, my lips tingling with the memory of his feel and my heart racing sickly in my chest. "Until we are married, I must protest." He stared at me for a moment, dozens of changes taking place in his eyes and re-detailing the features of his face.  
"Of course, my apologies," he said, bobbing his head in mild respect and I turned to stand next to him again, my skirt swirling after me in a twirl of fabric. He clasped his hands behind him again and continued down the hill, me following with the hem of my skirt rasping over the grass and the flower still twisted and turned between my fingers.  
I shut the door carefully behind me, the heaviness of the wood hard in my hands and the designs carved into it smooth and rough beneath my fingers. Papa looked up from where he sat behind his desk, a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose and the silver in them glistening in the firelight. He looked up; his eyes tired and the look of them seeming to more heavily line his face with wrinkles and a sudden recognition in me of his age.  
"Charlotte," he smiled faintly, standing from behind his desk and walking around to see me, a slight limp in his step that broke worry in my stomach.  
"Papa are you ill?" I asked, stepping closer and my nightgown catching along the carpet. He forced a smile and gestured me to the chair by the fireplace, the shadows of the flames darkened over the fabric and twisting and distorting the patterns. I walked over, my bare feet adjusting the thickness of the carpet and I sat into the softness of the chair, papa sitting across from me with a grunt. I fixed myself in the seating, the heat of the flames burning through the thinness of my skirt and against my legs. Papa ran the cuff of his shirt between his fingers, staring at the carpet and the hem of my skirt with his eyes unseeing both. I waited, curling the fabric around my fingers with the shape of it twisting and wrinkling in the action. He blinked suddenly and looked up, the same forced smile still carved upon his lips.  
"I have some bad news for you, my love," he said, the firelight catching off his eyes and making them sparkle sadly. I bit the inside of my lip, digging my toes into the carpet and feeling the threads twist around them.  
"Unfortunately your betrothal with … Sir John's son, Edward is not to come to pass," he continued, his fingers dancing over the carving on his arm rest. A huge weight seemed to fall off my shoulders, broken and crumbled away from the restraint that had for months seem to bind me.  
"Not to come to pass?" I asked, a sense of sadness in my voice that was born from nowhere deep inside me, only a relief that seemed to fill me up inside like air.  
"No, unfortunately the dowry that we were able to afford is not up to the standards of Sir John," Papa explained, his eyes drawn in with continued sadness and weighing off the lightness inside of me, now darkened with the knowledge of his cheerless state. "He has broken off the betrothal in hopes of finding a wealthier bride for his son." I nodded, the words not translating properly in my ears and inside the lightness that filled me, the darkness still edged around it but broken in comparison.  
"I hope you're not … too disappointed," Papa asked, his head titled somewhat and his eyes searching over my face for a sign or clue to what dwelled inside me.  
"No, papa," I admitted, carving over any relief in my voice and holding it firm with a sense of feigned sadness. "But what pleases you pleases me, what saddens you in return saddens me." He smiled a touch of honesty to it and nodded, the firelight glinting off his hair and silvering it.  
"Now, go to bed. You must be tired," he said, gesturing to the door and I stood, curtsying and turning with my skirt following in a wave of twisted pink. I pulled open the door and stepped through into the dark shadows of the hall, the light flickering off the walls in shimmering ghosts and shapes. The door closed behind me with a distinct thud and the lightness in my chest broke through and I smiled, a laugh of relief breaking over the feel of it and I pressed my fingers back against the wood, breathless in relief and a happiness that knew no bounds inside me.


	4. 1 3 Wolsey, Wolsey, Wolsey

**1.3 Wolsey, Wolsey, Wolsey (14)**

My leg lightly slipped against where I supported it on the alcove, the folds of my skirt falling open along with the movement, the coolness of it bare against my legs. I shifted on the seat, the thin pillow sliding underneath me in the movement and leaned farther back against the wall, the book in my lap sliding in the groove between my legs and the pages feel rough beneath my fingers. I pushed the pages further open and brought it closer to my chest, the delicate curve of the words blended together over the aging paper. I cleared my throat, my eyes curved along the arches and bows of the words, sweeping along the pages with dizzying movement. The door banged open and I jumped somewhat, the rough edges of the pages slipping between my fingers and slicing at them with stinging force. Grace rushed into the room in a flurry of skirts, a wide grin on her face and every line and detail to her face drew with excitement.  
"Sister, what is it?" I asked, standing up from the alcove and my feet connecting to the floor with a twist of my skirt. She slid to a stop in front of me, clasping my hands to hers and the book I held falling to the ground in a clatter of leather and paper. I waited, every detail of her bursting with something that rent her with a greater excitement and happiness that I had ever seen in her before. She laughed, pulling at my hands and bouncing excitedly, her hair and skirts in a rush with her movements.  
"Grace, please what is it?" I repeated, allowing myself to laugh as well if only in appreciation and love at Grace's happiness.  
"We're going to Court," she announced breathlessly, her eyes sparkled and glittering like crystals suspended in them. Something gave way in my chest, an emotion or a wish or a dream gathered up inside me and burst in a way that I didn't expect or know enough of to give name to.  
"Really?" I asked, suddenly also breathless, everything inside me broken and lost in a current of what I couldn't understand but wanted and craved more of in its entirety.  
"Yes, papa has secured us positions in Her Majesty's household," she continued, her hands tightened on mine and the feel of them imprinted along my wrist. "We're going to Court!" She burst into laughter and threw her arms around me and crushing me against her. The constraint around me compressed whatever had been born inside my chest and crumbled it into what had been given cause to be named excitement. I wrapped my own arms around her and she spun me around with my skirt catching shimmers in the air and laughed myself, wrapped up in her happiness and my own sense of excitement.  
"Do you have everything packed?" Mama called, rushing after Anna with her skirts billowed and the strands of her hair untangling themselves into a frenzy. "Everything? Their dresses? Their shoes?" She swept out through the door and down the steps, her shoes and skirts clattering over the stone and her voice falling into a din. I worked my fingers into the edges of my cloak, the hang of it nearly encasing me in its warmth and the woolen touch soft under my fingertips. Something caught around my waist and lifted me, a tug of surprise in my stomach as my skirts and the cloak lifted around my ankles and I turned back to see William with a wide grin on his face, his arms around my middle tightly.  
"How does it feel, mouse?" He asked, setting me back to the floor and my skirts collapsing against it. "To be going to Court, to be one of the Queen's ladies, to having every gentlemen there fall head over heels in love with you?" I brushed back my hair swept over my face, blushing up my cheeks and along the nape of my neck with delicate heat.  
"Why would they?" I asked, his last words catching through my mind. He stared at me for a moment in almost hidden disbelief, his eyes darting over the details of my face before he broke out into a grin and pressed his lips firmly against my forehead.  
"Ah mouse, I shall miss you," he said with an undercurrent of sadness to his voice breaking through the humor and amusement in his voice. I attempted to smile back, memories of him beginning to swirl around through my mind dizzying and prickling me with a sudden burst of misery at having to say goodbye.  
"Grace!" He loudly declared and bolted from the hall and out the door with a dramatic leap and I smiled the feel stinging at the tears behind my eyes.  
"Charlotte?" Papa asked and I turned to see him stepped forward, the same limp to his step that had become ever present and the same lines carved along his face, the silvered strands now thicker and more frequent to his hair. I smiled, as he stepped closer, an ache in my chest at his great handsomeness.  
"Papa," I greeted and dropped into a curtsey, the collar shifting around my neck and itching at it uncomfortably.  
"I must speak with you before you go," he said solemnly, my smile falling from my lips and a sense of dread replacing it. "I want you … to be careful when you are at court."  
"I will papa," I assured him, wanting to alleviate whatever weighed so heavily on his mind and on his heart.  
"No, you don't understand," he said, shaking his head sadly. "You must be careful … for the sake of the men at court." Confusion bore its true form inside me and I raised my eyebrows, a sense of balancing on the edge between the unknown and known. He sighed deeply and knelt with difficulty in front of me, his head just level at my chest and his eyes raised up to my face with silent pleading. "For the sake of the men at court you must be careful with yourself." I stared down at me, everything tensed and frozen inside me with a struggle to piece together his words and understand them.  
"Papa … I don't understand …," I began, a crawling under my skin that irritated my every inch with a desire to know what he was meaning to say.  
"You don't understand Charlotte. Your heart is so … so great you can't possibly understand it," his eyes scanned over my face, the same pleading in them that seemed to shatter him downwards to the core. "You are good and you are kind and … and men will sacrifice everything they have for a place in your heart. In your thoughts and your prayers. People rule through their bodies or their minds but you … my dear, sweet Charlotte shall rule through your heart. Men will live and die in the name of it. Will fear its greatness, its power and one day … one day you will be more powerful then the Queen of England … all because of the greatness of your heart. Remember that. Never forget it and I plead with you … protect yourself and your heart at all costs. They're both too great to risk." I stared at him, his words carving their way slowly through my and sinking through my chest and curled through my heart, the impact raw and terrifying and burning its way through me like it would consume me and leave me in ashes. He forced a smile and grunted as he stood, pressing his lips against my cheek and standing to his full height. I remained frozen, his words still echoing through me and consuming me in a burning force that ached and twisted and made me want to collapse sobbing and broken. I slowly turned and walked to the door, every step pronounced through me and every movement doubled in its heaviness and sense of terrible foreboding.  
I stepped through underneath the arch, the gray light from the windows pooling over the floor and illuminating the details of gold and silver that darted across the walls like fanciful afterthoughts. I swallowed hard, my toes kicking nervously at the hems of my skirt and flaring it out over the floor with rustles that seemed impossibly loud. Grace looked around in barely concealed wonder, every detail around her carving its way through her mind and piecing together a reality to her perfected fantasy. The pearls in my headpiece seemed to pinch at the sides of my head, men and the occasional woman gathering around us to watch, their clothes in a flurry of colors and jewels that blended and then shattered into a broken image of elegance and beauty that I didn't quite feel the proper grasp of. My heart beat faster in my chest, the men darting back and forth around the mini procession with eager faces and noises of acclaim, their eyebrows raised and their eyes themselves brokenly sweeping over us.  
"Beautiful hair mistress!" One of them called, his attentions appeared to be directed at the woman in front of me, her long black hair curled beautifully down her back and set with a jeweled headdress that dulled and seemed to ashen out my own.  
"Tell me your name, mistress," another called, his voice eager and on bordered desperation and my heart caught in my throat, the stares and calls swirling into a blend of dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me and I slid my hand into Grace's, the lace cuff of her dress caught around my wrist. She tightened her grip on mine, her fingernails against my palm and we stepped through another arch after the woman before us, all the men and chaos of the hall falling and fading behind.

I folded the sheet carefully, the edges pinching together neatly and their lace details catching out along one another. My eyelids began to ache, every part of me tense with it, rigid and frozen with every thought and sight and smell that carved its way through my body until it lay spindly and weak and ready to collapse. I blinked several times, the sheets silky to the touch beneath my fingers and set it to the side on the pile of others, the firelight casting distorted shadows over their surface. A woman stepped beside me, her hair curled delicately over her back and curving the firelight, the detailed jewelry to her gown blatantly hinting at her higher nobility. She slid a sheet over to her and started to fold the edges together, her head bowed and the light glinting off the corners of her eyes. I swallowed hard, unsettled somewhat by her beauty and obvious higher class and ran my fingers over the lace of a sheet, the knobbed design bumped under my fingertips.  
"My name is Charlotte," I said, my words seeming unnaturally loud and uncertain in the still air and she looked up, the firelight dancing over her eyes and giving hint to so much beneath and inside her. An ocean broken in eerie calm and terrible storms, wars and battles, true greatness and all consuming love all swirling through her eyes in barest hint to what deeper they represented. "Duchford." I swallowed again, suddenly overwhelmed and overpowered by the look in her eyes that transpired like liquid silver over her body. Her lips broke into a smile that reached up to her eyes and spun them like crystals and made me hurt all over.  
"Anne Boleyn," she greeted, a strand of hair curled across the elegant curve of her neck and shimmering with silver in the firelight. I smiled in response to her own, an ache inside me of a sudden sense of companionship and sisterly love that rebuilt my exhaustion and re-broke me on its own accord.  
"Pleasure to meet you, Anne Boleyn," I said politely, unable to keep the smile and it's carve off my lips and she nodded in response, her own smile on her lips and turned back to the cloth with her nimble fingers working over the fabric. I turned back to the sheet myself, a bubbled sensation in my chest that seemed to fill me to burst.  
I pulled at the my shortened gold lace cuff, shifting as I stood and my skirt delicately turning in the movement, the folds rippled in the ethereal dusted light. A laugh burst through the open archway, echoed in the almost silent room and I looked up as a handsome young man walked in, his dark hair shorn short and the streams of brighter light reflected off his face and goldening it. The man next to him was younger still, darkened hair sparse on his face and a plumed hat on his head that shivered in his movement.  
"That is the King," Anne whispered to me, her face subtly turned toward mine and her curls unsettled over her back in the movement. I turned back to the man with the shorn hair, the smile still on his lips and creased the lines of his face in the movement. A sudden sense of greatness seemed to steep itself inside me and I dropped into a low curtsy after Anne, her head piously lowered and a certain allure to the movement that seemed to lace itself into her every step.  
"Your Highness, your Aunt awaits," The King said and I re-stood, the dusted light catching and glinting off my skirts in an array of silver. The King and the other man bowed their heads to one another politely, trumpets sounding on his arrival as the man walked through the arch  
"Your Majesty, His Imperial Highness, Charles, Holy Roman Emperor," A man politely announced, his voice strong and clear amongst the trumpets and sound of applause that gathered together in careful coordination. I turned as Anne did to the pillar, my skirts catching off the edge of it and I stepped around, the same ethereal light softening the lines and details to the floor and hovered around everyone gathered and fading them out like ghosts. I glanced back as Anne walked around and stepped into line beside me, her head bowed but a smile faint on her lips. I stepped into the formation of ladies behind the Queen, turned in a sweep of skirts and Anne coming to stand next to me. The Queen stood proud and firm, her red overcoat hung over her shoulders and her black hair loose and in loose waves along her back. Power and yet great kindness to her stance, along every detail and setting an affection in me that was steadily curving its way stronger and more familiar with each moment I took note of her. The Holy Roman Emperor bowed before her, his plume ruffled and his face turned upwards to her with solemn affection and love.  
"Majesty. I ask for your blessing as a nephew to an aunt," he professed, his gaze still on her face with piety and she raised her hand to him, her cuff dangled over her wrist.  
"I give you my blessing freely my dear Charles," she said warmly and he raised her hand to his lips, kissing it and raising himself up with her hand still clasped in his. "As I give you my love." They kissed one another on both cheeks, his feathered hat quivered in the movement and supposed soft to the look. He stepped away with her and smiled warmly as she slipped her hand on top of his with a guiding hold to it.  
"Your Highness," she began, starting to step to the windows with its cut panes, her skirt nearly dancing over mine and I stepped back somewhat, Anne holding firm and her eyes ahead and bold. "Allow me to present my daughter Mary. Your future bride." We all turned in a flurried of shared movements of skirts and the light more brightly now shining with its diamond shapes reflected onto the floor and around the Princess Mary, her dress and headdress hung with gold that shone with the sunlight and making it glitter. She pulled at the corner of her skirt and curtseyed and again rose, the Holy Roman Emperor clapping in approval, the sound loud in the almost silent room.  
"Bravo," he acclaimed, his arms outstretched and welcoming. "Come." He knelt beside her and kissed her on each cheek, a tiny smile on her lips that indented her cheeks and set her eyes warmly. "Now. We must wait to be married. Do you think you have the patience?" She nodded, the necklace at her throat glinting and I smiled, something to her person or her smile or her eyes that set me deeply with affection.  
"I have a present for Your Highness. Do you want to see it?" She asked politely, her headdress glittering gold.  
"I love presents," The Roman Emperor insisted with enthusiasm. "Show me." She turned to the window, the light better setting over her and he raised himself to a crouch, standing by her and their shared gaze to whatever awaited them in the courtyard.  
"There," she said and pointed to the window, her fingertips barely grazing the glass. "Look."  
"Are they for me?" He asked in excitement, a low gasp interrupted before his words.  
"Do you like them?" She asked, staring down at him and turning somewhat so the gold of her dress warmed itself in the light.  
"They are the best present I've ever had," he declared warmly, looking up at her with affection. "Thank you, Your Highness."  
"Here, take this one," Anne said, turning the plate of delicately arranged pastries towards me and I slid my hands beneath the cool silver, the weight pressed down against my hands. She picked up her own plate of carefully placed fruits in fragile design, and turned back to me as she started to step from the tent, the train of her gown trailing over the grass. I followed the plate heavy in my palms and they trembled somewhat with the weight and fear under my skin of dropping it and disgracing myself. The sound of music and chatter eased into my mind as the fold of the tent ceiling disappeared above me and my footsteps made their way across the grass. Footsteps rhythmically cut across the dance floor set up; skirts billowed in alternated movements along with their steps and the shadows darkening the floor boards beneath them. Anne glanced back over her shoulder at me and smiled in reassurance and I gripped the edges of the plate more carefully, willing myself not to drop it. I weaved past the low tables set up with various men and women seated around them, speaking and laughing lowly and a burning sensation crawled up the back of my neck as one or two set of eyes shifted over me. I froze my eyes to Anne's train as she stepped up to the high table hung with white lace and plates and cutlery of silver and gold. I followed along behind her, my eyes at the jeweled back of her gown and wonderfully and terribly aware of the sense of standing in and around greatness. Anne gently set her plate onto the table, the cloth catching underneath it and I stepped next to her, placing my own plate next to it so that the rounded edges touched. She gathered her skirts back and I turned my own skirts back and we both curtseyed, a servant in black and red livery bowing next to me. I re-stood, raising my eyes somewhat and taking in the sight of the Queen, a gold headdress atop her hair and jewels matched in gold and red upon her ears and neck.  
"Madam," Anne quietly said, also raised and the Queen nodded in acknowledgment, a twist in my chest that surpassed the ache spurred on by the great warmth of her beauty. Anne turned to glance over at me and walked along the table away from where the King and Queen sat and I followed, almost stumbled on my feet to keep close.  
"Are you hungry?" She asked, falling back in line beside me, her head shifted down to speak with me in a subtlety that those around us couldn't take note of. I looked over at her in question and she nodded at a gold vase of fruit. My mouth watered and hunger rolled through my stomach powerfully and I barely nodded, questions and thoughts on whether or not I was allowed to take one swirled through my head. She stepped closer to the table and nimbly reached for a pear and spun to her side to press it against the fold of my skirt and disguise the fact that she held it. I wrapped my fingers around the rough surface and she winked at me, sweeping away to another table and leaving the fruit rolled in my palm. I pulled my arm back in my sleeve to barely hide its shape in my cuff and slid to the side of the table, just out of bare reach of the chaos of noise and movement. Grace broke out of the folds of the tent, a platter in her hands and her eyes trained ahead of her, oblivious to the sparse man shifted in their seats to blatantly stare at her as she passed. I smiled faintly and pressed the pear to my lips and bit into the skin, the taste and sweetness of it burst in my mouth and on my tongue.

The King spun himself across the dance floor in calculate movements, his hand clasped with a young woman in an orange gown and her long dark hair fall around her shoulders. They separated across the floor, footsteps tapped and turned intricately over the panels and my foot began to tap in the rhythm of the music, the grass muffled the sound it made. The music faded out into the air and they all began to clap in appreciation of the dance and I clapped myself, the chewed to the core pear in my hand making the sound hollowed.  
"My Lady?" A voice asked, and I turned in a spin of skirts, the loosely constructed pink flowered wreath stirring from where it perched on my hair. A handsome young man stood before me, his brown hair shorn short and his blue eyes lit with a deep seated humor and warmth, the red and gold collar of his shirt high upon his neck.  
"My Lord," I greeted and dropped into a curtsey, my hands folded behind me to hide the eaten pear with the juice of it sticky upon my fingers.  
"Please, call me Charles," he said with a smile and tilt to his head that bronzed the scruff of hair along his jaw line. I paused, at a loss of how to respond in respect to his request or in respect to the lessons Mama had taught me in propriety.  
"Lord Charles," I attempted and he laughed, a shift taking place in his eyes that seemed to rearrange their shape and every other detail of him into a new sense and he ducked his head, the laughter still on his lips if but a little less easy then before.  
"And you are?" He asked, his head again lifted and the change still present and reshaping itself in his eyes.  
"Lady Charlotte Duchford," I said politely, again dropped to a curtsey with an uncertainty at what to do or how to act, thoughts and questions blurring and tumbled through my mind with no distinct line or difference between them to offer assistance.  
"Pleasure to meet you, Lady Charlotte," he said, a more honest smile across his lips that lined over his face and bronzed over the scruff on his face handsomely. "May I request the pleasure of your company for a walk?" My thoughts fell blank, any thought or helpful consideration or advice gone and vanished in a blinding whiteness that made me feel raw and bare and incapable of doing anything beyond standing still in utter silence.  
"I would be honored … My Lord Charles," I said, my words stunted and broken on my lips and in the air. His smile widened and he gestured for me to walk and I turned in a twist of skirts, my hands still folded behind me and the bitten edges of the pear caught under my fingertips. He stepped up to walk beside me, his own hands folded behind him and his boots almost inaudibly shifting over and through the grass. I quickly tossed the pear in my hands at the base of a tree, the sound of it thudded against the grass and rolled against the trunk. He glanced at the sound and turned his gaze away with a grin on his face and I carefully wiped my hands on the folds of my skirt, the stickiness of them dulled in the attempt.  
"Tell me about yourself, Lady Charlotte," He urged kindly, his head tilted toward me and the step of his boots more elongated then the daintier step of my own.  
"What would you like to know?" I asked, at a loss to what to say, my mind still blank with only faint impressions of what had before been carved.  
"Are you new to Court?" He wondered, tilting his head further to step past a tree, its lowered branches outstretched and twisted in the splintered light.  
"Yes, just come," I responded, turning my fingers into my skirts and pulling at the edges of it carefully. "A lady in waiting to her Majesty, along with my sister."  
"And what is your sister's name?" He asked curiously and I sped up my steps, my skirt kicking out in the movement and I became in sync with his.  
"Grace," I answered simply, a broken fall of sunlight and shadow passing over me. "And what about yourself, My Lord Charles?"  
"Still Charles," He laughed somewhat, the sound low and deep and giving the impression of rumble at the base of his throat that echoed warm in the air after. "Though my full name is Charles Brandon. Though I was recently given the title of Duke of Suffolk. However I shall still insist on you calling me Charles."  
"If you insist …," I accepted, my words trailed off and left empty, the chatter from the Court faded and softened to a dull aftertaste and leaving me with the raw knowledge that we were alone.  
"How do you like Court so far, My Lady?" He asked, his hand brushing back a lowered branch, the sound a low rustle of the leaves shifting in the touch.  
"I like it well," I answered, changing my steps to lead us in a curve back to Court, the details and fine colors visible in the distance with their shapes changing in movement. "What about you, Lord Charles, how do you like …" My words fell to a stop, his head turned to me and his lips suddenly pressed against mine in a memory of what a kiss was like. My body fell apart and tensed together, my mind wiped clean and a million things carved and bleed through it and I pulled away, his hands falling from my back and their absence leaving where they touched cold and bare.  
"Forgive me, My Lord but I cannot," I protested, my breath labored like it had been stolen and I hurried past him, my skirts gathered tightly in my fists and my heart rate racing like it would never slow or fade.  
I ran the needle through the fabric, the soft break of it pushing through and stretching it in a swell of white. I pulled it through tighter, the pink thread tangled through and stretched to the taut and re-threaded it through the other side. Grace hummed quietly under her breath, her head lowered over her work and her hair glittering like gold in the firelight. A knock echoed on the door and I lifted my head as a man in black and red decorated livery stepped through, his hands politely folded behind him.  
"Your Majesty," He said formally and bowed to the Queen, who stood, the gold of her dress shimmered around her like it was liquid. "The Duke of Suffolk is here." Something caught in my throat and twisted like a hook lodged and the Queen nodded, in accepting him and the man backed out of the room, his head lowered in respect and his shaggy hair falling over his eyes. Lord Charles stepped through the doorway, the dark details of his clothing setting the lightness of his hair, a water lily clutched in his hands and his face solemn in his lines and details.  
"Your Majesty," He said and bowed deeply, the petals of the flower rustled and he re-stood. "I would like to request permission to speak with one of your ladies, a Lady Charlotte." One or two of the ladies looked over at me, Grace also raising her eyes to me with her brow furrowed in confusion.  
"If the Lady Charlotte has no impediment to your request," the Queen declared, her accent thickened on the edges of her words and she turned to glance at me for any indication as to my response. I slowly nodded, my hand fisted in my sewing and stood, my skirts falling their touch to the floor in a crunch of fabric.  
"Ladies," the Queen said and everyone stood, a rush of fabric moving together and dropped curtsy's to Lord Charles, the occasional pair of eyes shyly turned to him with the faintest trace of allure and seduction to their lips. The Queen exited the room, in a turn of skirts with the rest of the Ladies sweeping after her, in twisted shapes of black and blue fabrics. Anne winked at me as she passed, her hair delicately curling over her shoulders in a twist of her movement. The door closed with a sharp click and I carefully lay my stitching onto the table, its fabric caught in intricate curves and folds on top. The silence lay over me like a sheen of lace, my view broken and yet hindered in a blur of white.  
"My Lady," He said suddenly, dropping into a bow with a hand pressed to his chest and the light glowing off his hair.  
"My Lord," I said politely, dropped into my own curtsey and rising again and my hands folded in front of me and my fingers turned together with a way of keeping myself together when uncertainty and nerves felt like it was pulling me apart.  
"I have come to most humbly apologize for my behavior," He began, his words shattering the silence and leaving the sheen of lace around me rent and torn. "It was disgraceful on my part and from the bottom of my heart I beg your humble and undeserving forgiveness." A small smile carved along my lips and I bowed my head to attempt to hide it but it curled and drew itself along my face like flames over wood, no reason or understanding to justify the smile but there and wonderful all the same …  
"You have my forgiveness, my Lord," I assured him, my face again lifted and a smile of relief breaking forth on his own. "Most willingly." He nodded, still half breathless in his relief and he suddenly held out the water lily to me, the thin curved petals reached up together like they were reaching for the sun.  
"As a token of my apology …," he said, and I took it from him, the shortened stem still damp and dripped water down my fingers in tiny droplets.  
"Thank you, My Lord," I said, the scent clean cut and sweetened and I twirled it between my thumb and index and the droplets spun from their petals.  
"Please, Charles," he insisted, a look to his eyes and smile that made me feel warm and like I was glowing, a fire inside me burned balmy and with the aftermath of shivers down my spine.  
"If you insist … Charles," I said, the name on its own marking something in me that was new and raw and gave meaning to a word that I didn't yet know: friend.  
The crowd parted as Cardinal Wolsey made his way through, his clothing a perfect blend of white and red like blood on snow, a wide sheet of paper held between his hands, his hands clutching it shadowing down its back.  
"For your Majesties to sign between you this treaty of perpetual amenity and concord," He spoke, his steps moving him closer to the high table and turned the paper onto the wood between the King and Holy Roman Emperor, Princess Mary seated between them and the Queen behind her, her arms warmly draped over her shoulders and her finger delicately lain upon them. "To confirm with your Seals and before these witnesses the betrothal of Charles, Holy Roman Emperor and her Highness Princess Mary upon her reaching the age of twelve. I say to you again, in my powers of paper legit and Chancellor of England that you should sign this Treaty of Friendship one to another and never break it so help you God." Drums started to beat somewhere off unseen and both the King and the Holy Roman Emperor reached for a quill and sketched their names on the sheet of paper, the sound scratching in the near silence. Instruments played off louder and the Queen started to clap and everyone followed suit into broken applause, my own clap almost inaudible in the echoed sound. The King and Holy Roman Emperor stood and kissed one another one each cheek, the King pulled away and gently touching his fingers under the Princess of Mary's chin in silent affection. He smiled down at her warmly and turned around the table, everyone dispersing and fading out into unarranged procession.  
"Well that was boring," Grace murmured lowly into my ear and I bit my lip in resistance against either a reprimand or a smile, whichever one won over itself in my mind.  
"Ladies," Charles greeted and I turned to look up at him standing a few inches from us, a hat with a feather set upon his head on a tilt and a smile on his face that laced itself with humor and something else that had no name.  
"My Lord," Grace said, dropped to a curtsy and a smile shyly painted over her lips.  
"Charles," I greeted, bobbing my own curtsy and the feel of the name naked on my tongue still strange and unnatural.  
"Excuse me," Grace said, dropping again in a curtsy and sweeping off into the crowd and falling in amongst those standing and shifting in an array of colors and skirts. I looked back at Charles, the feather dangled it's softened shadow across the tilt of his face.  
"So … would you like to meet His Majesty?" He asked, gesturing his head back to where the King stood by Cardinal Wolsey, the gold details to his clothing standing out against the blackness of them. My breath caught itself and an overwhelming dizziness threatened to drown me, the prospect too grand and terrifying to contain itself, bleeding out of me like a poison.  
"I … I wouldn't want to disturb him," I stuttered, breathless and terrified in a twist of confusion and cold sweat.  
"Nonsense," he insisted, cutting through the crowd like a knife through flesh and I followed, my movements labored and each one like moving through quicksand.  
"Your Majesty," he called, and the King turned, Cardinal Wolsey stepping away and the large gold chain around his neck clinking. Charles bowed slightly, his head barely dipping in respect and again it lifted with so much ease and nonchalance to him that contrasted the utter terror that ran raw through me. "I would like to introduce you to someone, Lady Charlotte Duchford, just come to Court." The King turned to me, his pale blue eyes settled on my face and everything ripped itself free of my memory, my thoughts, my heart, my mind, terror to an extreme I did not know that the King of England was looking at me.  
"Lady Charlotte," he said, tilting his head in respect and everything upon and in me froze past the threat of crumbling into nothingness. I swallowed hard, the movement skewering a pin of pain through my throat and I nearly fell to my knees in a curtsy.  
"Your Majesty," I said, my breath gone and anything worth knowing gone and vanished and I rose slowly, my legs trembling in the stiff movement. He stared at me for a moment, uncertain as to whether or not I was to leave or say something, the chatter around us dulled and a part of a world that was no longer a part of or knew.  
"So … you are new to Court?" He asked, filling the emptiness dulled by the sounds around us.  
"Yes, a Lady to Her Majesty," I spoke, my words too fast and fallen together in the air with no use or purpose to anyone. He blinked somewhat, as if in shock at how quickly I had spoken.  
"And how are you liking the Court?" He wondered, the hat upon his head tilting over his brow and the gold details on it catching the light and briefly blinding me in the glare.  
"It's like all my life I've lived in the dark and only just now am knowing the sun," I said, my words seeming to curve from a deep place inside of me that I didn't know and glittering in the air with a knowledge of the honesty behind them. He stared at me for a moment before laughing, the sound deep and echoed deeper and deeper in the air. Something inside me clicked painfully in place, a quiet knowledge that I had made the King of England laugh.  
"You are too kind, Lady Charlotte," he decreed, his laughter fading and leaving the air cold, one or two people turned to see the source of his good humor. "Now, I shall leave you to return to your duties. Charles." He indicated Charles with a nod to his head that Charles returned in deeper respect.  
"Majesty," He said and the King turned away from us and through the crowd, the folds of it parted to let him pass, falling into a bow or curtsey as their gender required and his shape disappeared as they fell back into place like nothing of greatness had just passed through.

I twisted the turn of the sheet between my fingers, the coldness of the air curled through the bare skin of my shoulder that had fallen loose of my nightgown. I pulled the thin robe over my shoulder, the twist in the fabric adding little against the chill. I rolled over, my nightgown tangled around my legs and slid closer to where Grace laid beside me, her hair draped around in her in a halo of gold that in the darkness looked bronze. I pulled the blanket up around me, a crackle in the dying embers of the fire doing nothing against the chill. I could feel the King's eyes still on me, the sound of his voice, his laugh, the knowledge that ran itself deep inside me that I had made him laugh. Him. The King of England. It seemed so impossible, so unreachable and unattainable that I could have possibly done so … me … of all people. _…One day you'll be more powerful then the Queen of England … _Papa's words echoed through me in faded shards and whatever joy or pleasure that had been inside me crackled out like the fire into the ashes of the fear behind his words. How could there be any truth to them? A prospect so beyond reach and consideration that it was only an inkling on the outskirts of an impossible notion. I buried my face into Grace's shoulder, the thoughts and the words faded and gone with the ached exhaustion that flooded through me and I closed my eyes, against the idea, the fear and the sound of the King's laughter. _…More powerful then the Queen of England … _


	5. 1 4 His Majesty, the King

**1.4 His Majesty, the King (14)**

"How long shall you be gone for?" I asked, the sound of my hem dragging across the gravel in a scrape of fabric that stretched itself in the air and the back of my mind.  
"A few months, not too long," Charles assured me, his hands folded behind his back and the edges of his cloak teased by the wind in curled movements.  
"And you're escorting Princess Margaret to Portugal?" I asked, slowly down my speech to reassure myself of the right details.  
"Yes, she is to marry the King," he replied, kicking his boot somewhat at the gravel and the sound of it grinded and rolled, the sound of water splashing from the fountain next to us quiet and reassuring beneath the near silence.  
"Does she find the prospect pleasing?" I wondered, pulling the corners of the cloak and pulling it around me better, the feel warm and woolen under my fingers.  
"Not particularly," he admitted with a laugh, his steps curved around the circular fountain in the middle, the water still pleasantly splashing into it and disturbing the lily pads and flowers. "He is old and considered by very few handsome."  
"Those aren't reasons why he can't have any good qualities," I pointed out, my head turned to him and the movement disrupting the pearls set to my headpiece and causing them to dig into my skull. He laughed, his head tossed back and the light warming over the scruff at his neck.  
"Only you would think so, Charlotte" he said, shaking his head in affectionate disbelief. "Only you."  
The voices of the choir soared, the sound echoed through the cathedral and adding to the faded light that hovered through the air like a mist and softening the delicate edges carved into the doorways and walls. Footsteps echoed on the stone floors and the King came into view, a small procession of man followed behind him, and approached the Queen. He stepped closer to her and took her hand, the words I had buried deep inside me broken through _…More powerful then the Queen of England … _and his eyes solemnly taken onto her face.  
"Good morning Madam," he said politely, and she turned to face the altar, her veil shivered in the movement.  
"Your Majesty," she replied, her eyes now forward to the altar and the King nodded to Cardinal Wolsey, his usual red robes replaced with ones of white and gold with details of green entwined into the design. The priests started to step to the altar with Cardinal Wolsey followed, his hem creased as he made his way up the steps. The King and Queen followed, his eyes falling back to stare at Anne, a look in his eyes that went beyond common description, her gaze only forced forward and the light crystallizing the veil held at her hair. She turned to follow behind them as did I, the Hymn book held between my hands and the leather creasing under my fingers. My own veil trembled over my hair, the delicate lace at the corners catching my eye as I turned. Anne paused at the steps of red velvet and I stopped beside her, my skirt shifted forward in the movement and barely touching the step. The King and Queen both knelt, crossing themselves and the King's eyes again fell to Anne. She stared to the altar, nearly unblinking as if she was aware in her every fiber of her being that he was watching her but that nothing could make her return his gaze.  
"But why are you leaving?" I asked, Anne delicately folding her gown and setting it into the chest with the folds making it shimmer.  
"It's hard to explain," she said carefully, smoothing down the edges of the gown and readjusting how it fit inside.  
"Try me," I said, digging my fingers into the head post of her bed, the intricate detailing in it a quiet reminder of her higher status. She paused her movements, her hand suspended over the silk and she turned to me, her eyes sweeping over my face and a thousand miniscule changes of color taking place in them. She turned to the door and nodded to the servant there, her name not one that I had yet learned and she curtseyed and stepped from the room, the door closing with a soft click behind her. Anne got up from the floor, the soft brown of her skirt unfolding and she stepped over to the bed and sat beside me, the mattress creaked in the weight.  
"What I am about to tell you … you must promise to not speak to anyone," she said solemnly, her eyes focused on mine and every movement to them visible and poignant. "Can I trust you?" Fear coiled itself inside me hotly and I slowly nodded, a thousand possibilities to what her next words could be arranging and rearranging themselves in my mind.  
"It's because of the King," she said, speaking quietly like it was a secret and a strand uncurling itself from her hair. I stared back at her, taking in every detail of her face and every one of them lined gravely with no hint of joke or lie given away.  
"Because of the King?" I asked, not understanding and desperately feeling like I should.  
"The King has … expressed an interest and it is my duty to prolong it," she said slowly, each word spoken like she was trying to make it easier for me to understand and yet I stood alone in a silence with none of the words breaking through.  
"I … I don't understand," I said, frustration broken inside me and a sense of my own stupidly making me painfully aware. She smiled sweetly and moved closer on the quilt and reached for my hand, her fingers long, cool and delicate and fitting in near perfection in mine. She moved our clasped hands to her lap and lay her other hand over top, her touch gentle and reassuring.  
"His Majesty has developed an affection for me and to prevent myself to giving into his desire I must return home for a short while, thus flaming further his desire," she said, her voice so kind and gentle it cracked through my heart and her eyes on and in mine to make sure that I understood. "Do you understand?" I let her words fall through my mind, cautious and slow and yet there and they pieced themselves together into the barest of understandings.  
"Yes," I said quietly and she smiled, tightening her grip on my hand and letting it fall from hers, again standing to the chest laid on the floor.  
"So that is why I must go," she said, my skirts flared across the floor and her hands rearranging the clothing in the chest to make them better fit.  
"When will you be back?" I asked, suddenly feeling hollow like my insides had been carved and all that remained were ghosts of reminders of her eyes, her smile and the feeling of staring at the truest of beauty when looking at her.  
"Soon," she assured me, standing and turning to the table by her bed, gathering something in her hands and turning back to me with them clutched. It was a letter with a red wax seal placed on top of folded blue velvet, faint shapes underneath to give the impression that there was something inside. "Can you return these to the King for me? As I trust you above all others." I looked up at her, her eyes staring down at mine and their appearance like the sky and the ocean meeting and their horizons blurred until there was no distinction.  
"Of course," I said, and took them from her hands, the velvet heavy and soft in my own and I pulled them back to my chest and held them there, determined beyond measure to keep them safe if only to justify Anne's great trust in me.  
"Your Majesty, Lady Charlotte Duchford," the man announced, his shadow changed on the door as he bowed and righted himself and I stepped through, held carefully upon my palms. The King was settled in his chair, his fingers played close to his mouth and I lowered my eyes as I stepped around the table, again aware of everything he did, every movement he did or did not make. I set it carefully on the edge of the table and dropped to a curtsy, my eyes still lowered to avoid meeting his eyes.  
"Majesty," I murmured and re-stood, daring to look up at him, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips and I turned to the door and swept out, my heart beat seeming to return once more like it stopped only in his presence. The door shut behind me by the man and I stepped lightly through the halls, various men and women moving through with their own distractions or own conversations to draw them into their own worlds.  
"Lady Charlotte?" A voice asked and I froze, the voice breaking through every sense and every thought and emotion I bore, dragging itself raw from memory and every dream or wish or desire that had born itself inside me in the deepest sense. I slowly turned and saw Mr. Thomas Cromwell before me, every detail and every imperfection and perfection that I had remembered and known suddenly there in the flesh and almost tearing me apart with a longing and desire to cry.  
"Mr. Cromwell," I said and fell into a curtsy, my heart racing in my chest and in my head and in my arms and legs and every other inch of me so that I ached …  
"What are you doing here?" He asked, a smile on his lips and carved along his jaw and breaking me apart inside.  
"I am a Lady to Her Majesty," I answered, every part of me burning up inside of me with a joy and happiness that seemed to surpass anything known by common words.  
"That's wonderful," he said, a touch of laugh to his smile. I couldn't breathe again, didn't know how, couldn't remember and could only smile when the feeling was such a bare and poor use of what was occurring inside me.  
"What about yourself?" I asked, needing to say the words, needing to hear him respond so I could retrace the sound of his voice in my head and in my thoughts and dreams …  
"I am just appointed secretary to his Majesty," he explained, indicating the leather folder in his hands and I nodded, the same smile on my lips that could now never possibly fade. "It's been a few years hasn't it, My Lady?"  
"Yes, quite some time," I agreed, already at a loss for words and yet wanting to say a million things.  
"You have grown quite beautiful in that time," he said, something in his eyes that was like the stars in the heavens. Everything inside me froze, ready to burst or crack and leave me but a name among ashes, still burned with something that I couldn't understand and couldn't name and yet so ready to consume me fully.  
"Thank you, you're very kind," I said, at a loss of words beyond the basic and simple. He smiled again, nodding and whatever was in his eyes still there and born in a million beautiful colors and feelings that surpassed the common.  
"I am afraid that I have to return to my work," he said, gesturing behind him, the folder still clasped to his chest and his fingers splayed across it.  
"Of course, I must return to her Majesty," I said, disappointment raw and broken inside me.  
"Perhaps we can meet again, sometime too," he suggested, and I could only nod, words not enough anymore to speak what I wanted and needed to say. He nodded himself and with a smile turned and left, his shoes faded in the sound of other footsteps and yet poignant and loud in my own thoughts. I turned myself, a burning inside me like a fire that would never die and a happiness that surpassed everything I ever knew or could know again.

I tugged the needle through the fabric, the half finished design unevenly stitched with the edges in awkward minuscule deviations across the whitened cloth. I pulled it through the other side, the green thread twisted and catching upon a knot and I set it down and dug my fingers into the twist and evenly pulled at it to unravel it. The crackle of fire popped next to my feet and I looked over at the flames, the blend and collapse of red and gold twisted through one another and over the wood and darkening it ashen. I looked up from their light and to Grace across from me, her stitching forgotten in her hands and her eyes frozen to the flames, a thousand flickers to her eyes that changed their shape broken the colors of them apart.  
"Grace?" I asked quietly and she looked up, the shadows burying through her hair and leaving the strands a burnt gold. "What is it?" She paused in her movements as if in sudden deep thought, her eyes focused upon the floor beside me as if memorizing detail like an artist memorized their subjects face.  
"Do you ever feel like …," she trailed off, her face turned darker and the details to them written with something beyond quiet sadness. The details suddenly grew light and she forced a smile upon her lips and turned to look to me, her smile not reaching whatever still took place in her eyes. "Nothing. Forget I said anything." Her eyes fell back to her stitching and she resumed her delicate study to them like time had been frozen and only now had fallen back to its usual pace of time. I stared at her, every feature to her that I had taken advantage of and now painfully aware of like they had been sketched in gold. The perfected curls to her hair, the lines that bore itself from the skin of her neck when she titled her head, the curve of her eyebrows so delicately arched, the indents of her neck like fingerprints sunk into silk … every detail now changed and etched with a shadow not caused by the firelight and I lowered my eyes down to my own work, the happiness that had burned so fiercely inside me now edged with a colder sadness that seemed to weigh me down like a poison.  
The Queen stepped carefully to her seat, her skirts fisted carefully between her fingers and lifted to keep them from dragging over the dirtied wood, her translucent veil falling down her back and over her hair to give the appearance of thin ice. She turned her skirts and sat upon the carved chair, the impressions on it standing out in soft curves. I swept around after her to stand beside the other ladies, the finer details of my dress contrasted against the more simplistic ones of my own.  
"Excuse me, Majesty," Thomas said and I looked over to see him standing at the Queens arm, a blackened hat with a feather sewed to hang over its edge and across the corners of his face. I swallowed hard, my body tensed and the world faded away at the edges to leave him standing there in perfected intensity. "I was wondering if I may request permission to have one of your ladies sit with me during the joust."  
"Which one of my ladies?" She asked, her head turned up to look at him and the movement making her headpiece tilt and the gold detailing glitter.  
"Lady Charlotte," he said, glancing over at me and my heart catching itself in my throat, the rawness of the feel laced through my veins like a poison twisted in the wonderful and terrible.  
"If she has no objection," the Queen responded politely, turned to me with a warmth and gentle affection to her eyes that hurt.  
"No, Majesty," I said quietly and she nodded to me in silent permission, a kind smile to her lips and I fell into a brief curtsy and carefully stepped around her skirts to follow after Thomas. He turned to make his way down the narrow steps down to the other seats, Cardinal Wolsey in his traditional red seated next to another man in full black contrast. The other man tipped his head politely to me and I smiled in response and sat on the other side of him on the hardened wood, Thomas on the other side of me, his knee almost against mine and the knowledge paralyzing.

A horse galloped down the strip between the stands, the blue and yellow of its livery faded with age and dust and the armor of the rider a stride it clinking in the movement. The crowd cheered as it raced between the post separating the strip, another rider running towards him with white livery and black details that stood out against the faded cloth. They ran towards one another and the wooden post held in the hands of the man with the white and black livery shattered against the armor of the other. Everything jerked inside me and I sat up straighter in my seat, everyone broken into polite applause and the two riders retreating to their opposite ends presumably unharmed.  
"First joust, My Lady?" The man in all black next to me asked, turned with a small amused touch to his smile that creased itself between his eyes.  
"Yes, My Lord," I responded, settled back into my seat and embarrassment to my reaction darkening hotly in my cheeks.  
"You are in for treat then," he assured me, turned back to the joust and the movement rustled his collar. I nodded slowly in agreement, turning back myself and willing myself to not turn to Thomas beside me, his profile visible out of the corner and the form of it blurred and yet dangerously detailed.  
"His Majesty, the King," the announcer declared and the King rode upon the stripe, tall upon his horse and the sun glinting off his armor and warmed to the blue and white livery upon his horse. He rode over to where the Queen sat, reaching for the wooden post held by a servant and gripping with an ease, tilting it so that it rested on the rail.  
"My Queen," he said, the word a touch of affection and she stood with a smile, a stripe of pink lace at her wrist that fluttered in the breeze.  
"My Lord," she said and untied the lace from her wrist and tightened it around the wooden shaft.  
"What is the … stick called?" I asked, leaned slightly towards Thomas and my racing heart beat almost drowning out the sound of my words.  
"It's called a lance," Thomas informed me, also leaned in close and the feel of the feather to his hat almost brushed over the lines of my face and making me involuntarily shiver. "The goal of the joust is to either break your lance upon your opponent's armor or knock them from their horse."  
"Does anyone ever die from jousting?" I asked, swallowing down the bitterness of the idea like the taste of blood.  
"Sometimes," he slowly admitted, cheers raised up around his words as the King rode to his position, the lace tied upon his lance and fluttering proudly. "But it is a rare occurrence." I slowly nodded, turned back to the stripe of dirt and my heart rate still tensed like it would burst. Trumpets blared out through the crowd and a man with bronzed hair rode to the end of the tiltyard, a hand raised in greeting to wave at the crowd and their applause still echoed with the occasional shout broke through.  
"Are you ready?" The man in bronzed hair called down to the King, a helmet now upon his head and leave only a rounded cut of his face bare.  
"I was born ready, William," the King called back, pulling his helmet shut and reaching for his lance. They started to charge down the stripe together, dirt kicked up by their horse's hooves and burst into the air, the King's lance collided against Lord Williams and the end of it splintering upon the impact. The crowd again broke into applause, the voice of the announcer drowned out and I brought my own hands together to clap politely, the action of it near silent in the explosion of noise.  
"Again!" Someone yelled and Lord William and the King again charged down the strip with lances at the ready, a burst of dust and wood between them leaving the outcome dulled to my eyes. My heart caught again and I sat straighter, each man rode to opposite sides presumably unharmed and I settled back, my heart rate unevenly beating in my chest.  
"Are you alright, Lady Charlotte?" Thomas asked, a twitch of a smile to his lips as he adjusted the way he sat with his clothing shifting in the movement.  
"Yes," I responded, the embarrassment still burned into my neck and cheeks and I dug my fingers into the wood to force myself into remaining still.

Sir William sat upon his horse with a grin upon his lips and his eyes directed down as two servants carried a large tree towards him and he heaved it up to his side with the strain apparent to his face and the tightness of his arm.  
"Is that customary in jousts?" I asked in confusion, again leaned close and his shoulder grazing mine like a shock.  
"No it is not," he said with amusement, Lord William moving down the strip with the tree still held against him, the crowd clapping and all apparently joining in with the joke. He reached the end to where the King sat and letting it fall into the grip of the two servants who had followed him.  
"His Majesty, the King and Mr. Anthony Knivert a plassiance," the announcer called, Lord Anthony closing his helmet and the King himself reaching for his lance. He closed his hand around it and began to charge down the strip with Lord Anthony charged after, the redness of the King's face apparent through his open helmet.  
"He forgot his helmet," I said in a panic, my words tumbled and my will to hold myself still gone in a tension filled grip. Everyone began to yell "Halt", their hands outstretched and faces drawn in terror as Lord Anthony's lance collided against the King's face in a collision of splintered wood. Everything wedged itself broken inside me and I gasped audibly, my fingers clenched around Thomas's hand, the crowd gasping and rushing forward as the King yelled out in pain and hung dangerously from his saddle.  
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty," Someone yelled and I stood, my hand still clasped in Thomas's and everything jagged and raw and in a panic of hurt and terror … Everything gathered in a group around where he had fallen, the Queen rushing from her seat and her face close to tears and her fists clutched into her skirt in her run. I dug my fingers into the rail, the slivers under my nails and against my skin, Thomas standing beside me and our clasped hands curved upon the rounded wood. The King rose from the crowd, the side of his face spotted with blood and a grin on his face as he clasped the face of a man with a shock of white hair, his knees collapsing and falling again to the ground. The crowd gasped, Lord Anthony stepping closer to him and the King pulling himself up by his grip on him. He clapped his hand against Lord Anthony's chest and moved to the Queen, holding her against him in unspoken reassurance. I swallowed, licking my cracked lips and ran my fingernail along the wood, the burned ache underneath them from the push of splinters.  
"Arm yourself," the King yelled, turned from the Queen and marching towards his horse, the crowd broken into uncertain applause. Thomas gave my hand a quick squeeze and I turned back to my seat and sat, terror still bitter on my tongue like iron. I took a deep breath and a warmth on my fingers weaved itself through my mind and I looked down, his fingers entwined through mine. The warmth spread further and deeper through me and I smiled, biting my lip to try and hold some sense of it back and turned back to the joust, every part of me rung through with the knowledge and the reaction it caused. The drums rolled through the crowd, the King at his end and Lord Anthony at his own, a lance to each of them and their helmets closed over their faces. I took a deep breath and moved more comfortably, Thomas's hand still in mine and my body still buzzing with the fact. The King and Lord Anthony charged at one another, a roar from the crowd bursting, Thomas's other hand gently stroking back over the back of mine and my heart rate tension in its beat. The King's lance broke upon Lord Anthony's helmet and he fell back from his horse, the crowd gasping as he fell to the earth and lay in the dirt disheveled around him. I leaned forward in my seat, every part of me again tensed like a wire heated and the sight of blood eerily dripping down Lord Anthony's neck.

"So Lord Anthony is alright?" I asked, pulling at the rounded and softened cuffs of my dress to cover over my hands and twist my fingers inside the fabric.  
"He should be, he did come close to losing his eye though," Thomas said, his hands folded carefully in front of him and the lace cuffs of his shirt curled at his wrists.  
"I am glad that he is okay," I said, turning and catching the eye of Anne who stood amongst the ladies, the deepness of the details to her gown standing out against their fade. She smiled over at me, winking carefully and turning her gaze back straight like it had been a figment of my imagination and I smiled back, the memory a sweet reminder that it wasn't.  
"You have a …," Thomas began and I turned back to him as he reached out and gently tucked a strand of hair back behind my ear and tucked behind the pearl of my hair piece. A shiver fell through me, curled through my blood and to every inch of my being and everywhere and wonderful …  
"Your Majesty …," A voice said and I turned to see Cardinal Wolsey and the King stepping closer, an orange clutched in the Cardinal's hand with stripes of it peeled and revealing the lacy flesh underneath. "…This is your new Secretary, this is Thomas Cromwell, he is a trained barrister, a diligent man, a scholar, I think he could be useful to your Majesty." I dropped into a low curtsy, my hands still fisted inside my sleeves and now pulled at my skirt with the softness caught between my fingers. The King barely nodded, his eyes cast elsewhere and I followed his gaze to find it frozen upon Anne, her posture straight and firm with her eyes piously stared ahead like she couldn't feel his gaze and even if she could she refused to return it.  
"Mr. Cromwell," the King acknowledged, barely nodding to Thomas and sweeping past with the Cardinal on his heels, the scent of orange hanging around him like a sweetly scented mist.  
"Majesty," Thomas said, sweeping into a bow and rising as the King moved past, fixing a hand to fold behind his back and turning back to me.  
"So … tell me, My Lady …," he began, a lightness of discomfort to his words and he cleared his throat with a roughness to the sound. "…Do you have many admirers at court?"  
"Admirers?" I asked slowly, the feel of the word uncertain on my tongue and teasing me to the meaning of it that seemed just out of reach.  
"Yes. Have many men come to court you?" He asked more carefully, his eyes carefully detailing over my face and the look of it seeming to strip me bare.  
"No, not to my awareness," I answered carefully, a touch of flickered hope burning along the edges of my mind with the wish of what his next few words could be.  
"Would you mind if I paid you court?" He asked slowly, his words broken and fragmented in the air and falling through in the same manner to make me bleed and re-heal in a twist of emotion I couldn't describe.  
"I would be honored," I replied, swallowing hard and the feel of it raw and torn on the words that still bleed inside me like a poison twisted in the terrible. He exhaled lightly in relief, a smile to his lips and casting over his face like a warmed shadow that touched upon its lines and his eyes in tenderness. Movement turned out of the corner of my eye and I turned to see Anne standing some distance away, a various man or woman crossed in front of her and dulling when they did so under the intense beauty of her every detail. She smiled with sly knowledge and gestured for me to join her, the candlelight of the candelabra carving along her delicately and making her appear to glow.  
"Excuse me," I apologized, turned back to Thomas and the shadows of the fire dancing the lace of his collar across his neck.  
"Of course," he spoke, and lifted my hand, the lightness of my sleeve falling back and gathering softly around my elbow, and pressed his lips to the back of it, my fingers delicately curled over his own. Everything froze around me, every detail, every line and perfection and imperfection frozen and suspended with the firelight dancing through it all like standing inside a diamond. He lowered my hand and I fell to a short curtsy, everything breaking its way back into movement and I moved across the crowd to where Anne stood, the same smile to her lips like she knew every thought and feeling that passed through my mind and heart.  
"What were you doing with Mr. Cromwell?" She asked, turning to step beside me, her head titled so that it nearly rested to my shoulder and the movement of it hinting at intimacy.  
"He has asked if he could pay me court," I replied, the darted firelight curling and softening through my sleeves to give them the appearance of thickened cream.  
"And you replied …," she asked, trailed off in her words to allow me to finish them, her hair falling to the side and over her shoulder in the continued tilt of her head, the light buried and vanished in the strands.  
"I said yes," I said and a smile broke its way upon my lips and I bite my lip to hold it back, everything inside of me humming with the knowledge, the feel of his lips upon my hand, the shape and color of his eyes and how they changed in the firelight …  
"You did?" She asked, her eyebrows subtly raised and turned to me, the shadows sketched along the bridge of her nose and darkening it.  
"Yes. Why? Was that wrong?" I asked, in a sudden panic and she spun to face in a swirl of skirts, stilling my steps.  
"No, of course no," she assured me kindly, the pearls at her necklace glinting along the curves and reflecting like ghosts upon her neck. "I just want you to be careful … that's all."  
"Of course," I promised her, touched by her concern and she smiled in response, the curve off it delicately shaped upon her lips. She gently pressed her fingers to my wrist, creasing the fabric there and led me to a man with clean cut dark brown hair and softened features.  
"Charlotte, I would like you to meet my brother … George," she said, releasing my arm and gestured to him with a sense of pride to her words and smile.  
"Lady Charlotte," he greeted, speaking my name like we already knew one another and raised my hand to his lips over where Thomas's kiss had lingered. "Anne speaks of almost no one else."  
"Shut up," Anne said, playfully hitting his arm and he stepped back with a laugh, the grin wide on his face.  
"So … tell me Lady Charlotte, what do you think of Court?" He asked, readjusting the cuff over his wrist and his head tilted to look up at me.  
"I like it very well My Lord, and you?" I asked, folding my hands in front of me and the thickened string tied over my front bumped beneath them. George glanced over at Anne, his eyebrows raised to his small smile like an inside joke between them and she smiled in affectionate pride in response.  
"I like it quite well," he said, turned back to me and the smile still on his face like a warm afterthought.  
"I'm glad to hear it," I responded and he laughed slightly, the sound kind but edging me with the idea that he was somehow making fun of me and that I was too naïve to figure out how or why.

I spun in my movements, my skirts wide around me in a sweep and George's arm warm around my waist and firmly held there. I adjusted the grip of my fingers on his waist, my hair bouncing lightly upon my shoulders, my gaze fallen barely upon his neck and unable to adjust it higher to take in his face. He slid his arm from around me and set his hands on my hips, the touch making me jump inside, and lifted me somewhat, my fingers creased to his elbow and my feet connecting with a pronounced sound to the floor. I twisted to lay my back parallel to his, my fingers pinched to hold the corners of my skirt and turned again to stand opposite to where I had done a moment before. I lightly bounced on my feet and spun around him, Anne spinning by in a blur of red and gold, her hair loose and curled over her shoulders and a wide smile on her lips. I smiled back, a laugh breaking free of my throat and again spun to George's arm, the world blending together and falling wonderfully under my feet. He laughed somewhat, my feet tapping to the floor and the sound of the music intoxicating in the back of my ears and in my chest. He released his grip and the hand of another Lord caught my own, George on the other side with his fingers twisted over mine. I alternated my steps carefully in a line, running them through my mind with the barest hint of panic that I would forget, the red of my skirt tucked over the movement of my leg. The music began to fade out its notes and I slid my hands free from theirs and lowered into a deep curtsy, my skirt creased over the floor and my knees to the floor. Clapping broke from those who had watched and I rose myself again, breathless and dizzy and wonderful all at once. Anne walked over to me, half breathless and the hint of blush over her neck and cheeks. I tucked a strand of hair from my face, my gaze taking in the sight of the King seated across the room by the Queen, his gaze frozen to Anne and trained to follow every minuscule movement she made.  
"The King is watching you," I murmured, leaned forward and turning my head to her shoulder to avoid the possibility of him reading my lips. Her eyes raised themselves, her eyelashes fluttering in the movement but no other trace of reaction apparent to my eyes and she glanced over at me, her gaze passing over and a tinge of smile to the corner of her lips.  
"Mr. Cromwell," she said simply and I turned to him standing off of the dance floor, his gaze fixated on me and a smile on his face. My breath lost itself again and I looked back over to Anne uncertainly and she nodded encouragingly, a sparkle dancing in her eyes. I walked over to where he stood, pulling at the width of my sleeves to cover my hands and the exertion of the dance still presumably colored my pale skin pink.  
"Mr. Cromwell," I said, curtsying lightly in respect, my legs trembled on the exhaustion from the dance.  
"Please, just Thomas," he insisted, grinning somewhat and the look of it touching me with the thought and the promise that he was the most handsome man that I had ever seen.  
"Thomas," I said slowly, as if trying out the word on my tongue for the first time, the feel of it making me shiver deeply.  
"Did you enjoy the dance?" He asked, gestured to the floor where couples had again gathered, twisting and turning in blurs to the rhythm of the instruments.  
"I did," I said, breathless again and brushing a strand of hair back from my face and into the pearl of my headpiece. "I caught enjoy dancing, I used to practice with my brother William."  
"Ah, is your brother here at court?" He asked, glancing around the hall as if expecting to see him and confirm his own words.  
"No, he is at home," I confessed, the truth behind the words bringing up an ache in my chest at the memory of his smile and his laugh faded upon the edges. "He always sad that Court life was not for him."  
"And is Court life for you?" He asked, his head tilted and his eyes searching and the green and blue in them changing in a thousand shades.  
"I believe it is," I said, a hint behind my words that I hoped he would catch and at the same time feared that he would. He smiled, the look of it touched to his eyes and I licked the sudden dryness to my lips, dizzy everywhere and wonderful.  
"May I request your company for a walk?" He asked, turned to gesture to the hallways branched from the hall, the torches flickering it's light across the more darkened walls.  
"It would be an honor," I said happily and he nodded warmly, a hand outstretched for me to lead the way and I followed its reach, turning to look back at Anne, her gaze after me and a smile on her lips, the touch to it warm and wonderful.

"Are you warm enough?" Thomas asked, his arms folded behind him and the darkness cloaked over and sunk into the details of him with the flicker of light caught occasionally over.  
"Yes I am," I assured him, pulling at my sleeves over my hands, the tightness of the fabric pulling at my arm in a turn of cloth.  
"So … tell me about your family," he urged, turning to the side as a man in green livery stepped past with his head bowed and the shadows dangerously passed over his face.  
"Well I have four siblings. My sister Grace and my brothers David, Thomas and William," I began, the names rolled off my tongue with the sense of sisterly affection that I had always known and missed in its use. "My sister Grace is here at Court with me, my brother William at home and my other brothers David and Thomas studying at the universities in Europe."  
"Ah," he acknowledged, again turning as a couple passed in a match of somber black clothing that faded them into the shadows. "And what are your brothers studying?"  
"Well David wishes to become a Lawyer and Thomas a doctor," I explained, the words tumbled from my memory with the faded remembrance of the many letters they had sent, each word dictated with affection and detail that would long not fade from my mind. "They used to send me letters every chance they got but have since grown more busy and less able to write."  
"That is unfortunate," he acknowledged, turning around a corner and my skirt clipping the edge of it, my fingers pressed to the roughness of the stone. "Do you miss them?"  
"Every day," I replied solemnly, the mention unburdening memories broken apart of Thomas's laugh or David's voice, the fade of the memories and their age confusing their details until their distinction between the two of them gone and misplaced. "So what about you, tell me about yourself."  
"Not much to tell really," he admitted, with a low laugh, his head lowered and the curls upon it with the appearance of being carefully arranged. "Just the boring stories of an old man."  
"I don't think you're old," I said in honesty, a thought occurring to me that he was approximately the same age as my father and he laughed, the sound burning warmly through me and flickered deeper inside my chest with no hint of shadows to the flames.  
"That's very kind of you," he said and turned to lean against the wall and forcing me to stumble to a stop, the air around him intoxicating in a burn that threatened to consume me. I lowered my eyes to the rough stone of the floor, my heartbeat everywhere and the feel of his eyes like the sun hot and everywhere upon the top of my head. "Have you ever been kissed, Charlotte?" I slowly looked up, the whole world slowed like stepping through honey, entangled around me in gold and I swallowed, his eyes lost in mine in a blur of green and blue.  
"Twice. But not by desire on my part," I said quietly, the words seeming to echo through the silent hall, the feel of them heavy and sinking through the air.  
"May I kiss you?" He asked, a rich thickness to his voice, his eyes pierced and stripping me bare beyond clothing or flesh or blood.  
"Yes. You may," I said quietly, my words seeming lost and broken in comparison to what built and suffocated inside my chest. He slowly leaned forward, the curve of his neck danced with shadow and light and his pressed his lips uncertainly against mine. It broke through me like the hottest fire and the most frigid ice, shattered through my blood like a poison and its cure, curled down into the barest inch of me and leaving me blanketed in what stole my breath and returned it all at once. He lightly pulled away; the taste of him still lingered and hung around me like an early morning mist on a lake's surface, there and yet gone when you reached for it with your fingers.

"Tell me, what are your thoughts of Court?" Thomas asked, a breeze clipping at his collar and reshaping the shadows that shivered upon his neck.  
"I like it quite well," I admitted, my thinly gold cuff brushing at the bone at my wrist, shivering down my spine and spurred by the knowledge that his hand was clasped with mine, our fingers linked and his thumb stroking absent mindedly back and forth over the back of my palm like it was second nature, an action that didn't come with thought but only a reassurance that it was right. "However I must confess to missing home more then I intended."  
"Well that is only natural," he assured me, his footsteps pronounced on the gravel and shifting it to leave a faint reminder of where he stepped, a rustle of wind clawing at the lily pads on the pond and shifting their movement atop the ripples of the darkened water.  
"Do you ever miss your home?" I asked curiously, fisting my fingers into the flap of my cloak, twisting around the woolen edge and burying the thickened fibers under my fingers. He furrowed his brow somewhat, the action creasing the lines in his forehead and another breeze twisting at the hairs on his head and silvering the tips in the sunlight.  
"I consider Court to be my home now," he said slowly, clearly his throat and the sound roughened like a rusted blade being sharpened. He thought on the words for a moment, reshaping their feel in his mind like clay between his fingers and turned to look down over me, the blue and green in his eyes shattered and an ache twisted and burned deep inside my stomach with a yearning I couldn't properly shape in my mind. He smiled faintly, the look of it creased to his eyes and I smiled in response, the yearning still there, still broken inside me … His hand squeezed mine gently, his fingers shifted more tightly entwined in mine and he resumed his steps, the breeze curled at the edges of my cloak and billowed them in a ripple and crawling the hem along the top of my shoes.

The bristles of the brush dug into my scalp, drawn down and separated the thickness of my hair and bronzing it in a curve as the candlelight followed after. Grace tilted her head, her fingers gently smoothing after the brush and sliding through the strands like through water, the tips of them touched against my scalp. I leaned my head on my knee, the honeyed fabric of my nightgown creased in the movement and lifting over my feet to leave my toes bare on the quilt with its fold clipped over. The memory of Thomas's hand in mine entwined itself through my fingers and I lay them out before me, the candlelight shivering its light and shadow over them and stretched across the sheet. I turned over my hands, no sign or cause to them to suggest the reality of the memory and yet I could feel it crawled under my skin and through my blood like a fire swift and burned.  
"What are you thinking about?" Grace asked quietly, her voice stunted and uncertain in the near darkness, the candlelight bended and curved around her to leave her half in light and half in shadow.  
"Nothing really," I said, tucking my hands underneath my chin, the tingle of memory still burned through them like a heated wire, my words tensed over my tongue with the sense of the lie to them, the tiny protection to Grace's feelings.  
"Are you thinking about Mr. Cromwell?" She asked, the sense of the question almost lost in her words, her movements stayed and the brush held tightly in her hand, the light buried into the carved wooden back and burnished red.  
"Maybe a little," I replied, the burn of his memory carving through my mind and flickered with the shape of his eyes, the feel of his hand entwined with mine and the taste of his lips … "He has asked to court me." She didn't say anything, her movements frozen and yet trembled with the candle light and I turned my head upon my folded arms to look at her, her hair frayed upon her shoulders and a look in her eyes that shivered in its movement with something that buried painfully in my chest.  
"And what did you say?" She whispered, her eyes darting over my face like she was looking for something, something that was no longer there …  
"I said yes," I replied and something changed in her eyes. Something that grew darker and jagged, something that shattered the sweet shade of blue in them and twisted them nearly black, breaking something in my chest and making me want to cry. She nodded slowly and set the brush back to my hair, the bristles again pulled through my strands and tugging on them with enough pull to make me bite my lip.

My footsteps echoed on the floorboards, the sound pronounced and breaking the silence of the air with an echo that hummed into the next step. I licked the dryness of my lips, twisting my fingers together behind my back and catching them in the fabric of my gown, the red most likely bleeding between my fingertips. The walls were darkened, paneling carved into the wood and the grey light from the window deepening into the edges and sharpening them. I walked further into the room, my footsteps softening on the carpet, the light twisting the patterns stitched in and lengthening them thinly.  
"Charlotte?" Thomas asked and I turned, my skirts spinning around me in a blur of red, the rippled edge of the hem straightening in the movement. Thomas stood by the doorway, a small smile to his lips that marked their place in his eyes, the darkness of the room roughening the edges of him and twisting something with fierce strength in my chest.  
"Thomas," I greeted, bobbing a curtsey, my skirts pressed against the carpet and stirring a quiet burst of dust as I re-stood. He moved from the doorway and over to where I stood, the dulled shadows stretching over him and awkwardly cutting their way over the patterns on the carpet. My heart rate increased itself with tense pressure, pulsing through me until my entire body hummed with its presence.  
"You requested to see me?" I asked, the back of my skirt dangerously creased with my fingers entwined in the fabric, the feeling thinly sharp under my nails.  
"Yes," he said slowly, the word somewhat dragged in its sound and he cleared his throat, his eyes lowered and re-shapened like dozens of thoughts were darting through his mind. "I have requested you here to ask if you would … like to become my mistress." The word fell through me in shards, crumbling between my fingers, the remains stained over my fingers like gold and yet the meaning lost and un-grasped to my touch.  
"What would that involve?" I asked cautiously, my own stupidity grown in the back of my mind and broken along the curve of my neck with a blush that heated against my spine.  
"It would involve you moving into my apartments …," he began carefully, gesturing lightly to the room and I caught my gaze around it, the tiny details rapidly sketched and darkened through my mind. "… I would take care of supporting you and we would have relations on a … carnal level. And if God willing you would bear my children." His words spun through my mind, shattered and broken and crumbled through me in a confusion of feelings and emotions that they stirred inside me. Become his mistress? Could I do that? A warmth shattered itself inside my chest at the thought, the strong possibility that he loved me, darkened by my own uncertainty and intense desire that Anne was here to give me some advice.  
"I would be honored," I said slowly, tasting the words on tongue and heavy in the air, cutting through my chest and sunk with a pressure that hurt. His face broke into a relieved smile and he laughed slightly, the sound lightened and breathless and I smiled in response, the pressure unraveling itself inside me and falling harmless in shreds. He leaned forward slightly, his finger caught under my chin and pressed his lips against mine. The feel sparked like a lit wire through me, coiled and twisted in my blood and I set my fingers upon the ones he held at my chin, every part of me hummed and tensed in the feel. His other hand laid itself upon my waist, his fingers entwined upon the strings that tied themselves there and a sudden coldness flooded through my entire body, gripping it in fear. I pulled away, the feel of him still hung over my lips like a lace only ghosting in the touch and memory.  
"I haven't …," my words crumbled with the nerves that coldly unwound in my stomach, the embarrassment behind them that in contrast heated at the back of my neck. "I have never …" He lightly kissed me and pulled away, an overwhelming gentleness to the action that hurt me everywhere.  
"I'll be gentle," he assured me, his eyes impossibly soft and he leaned forward again, his lips stirred with something deeper and like a secret unburied, his fingers again to my waist and his fingers carefully pulling at the string that was tied there.  
A cloud passed over the moon, fading the light through the room and darkening each edge and lengthening their shadows across the floor and over the crumbled quilts of the bed. I pulled the fabric tighter around me, the deepness off a chill crawled over my skin and raising goose bumps along my bare shoulders and neck. The wind howled mournfully, a ghostly reminder of the stories William used to tell me, each word dripped with amusement and yet eeriness that ran its touch down my spine. That was so long ago … my skirts had been shortened, my hair tangled and my feet dirtied, memories of a childhood that fell and crumbled with only the emptiness of where they had been before. I turned to look over at Thomas, his head turned towards me with his hair tangled and curled in darkened sweat. His breath rose and fell in his breaths, the sheet pulled around his waist and the silvered light painting along the leanness of his stomach, the sparse hairs curled over his chest. Something welled deep inside me, dragging and clawing at my insides and everything inside me heart with a love too strong for me to understand, too fierce for me to fully grasp and yet pulsed in every inch of my being. I shifted my legs under the quilt, a rawness between them that bit into my skin and I let them fall back where they had lain, the faint reminder of blood still stained between them. I slid closer to where he lay, grimacing as the movement unsettled between my legs and rested my head upon his pillow, the fabric of it creased with the newfound weight. Another breeze whispered the clouds over the moon, cutting its shadows along his face and every detail with a tenderness. I carefully lifted my fingers; hesitation trembled in the movement and lightly pressed them along his brow. He shifted in his sleep with a grunt, the move freezing inside of me but I ran my fingers along the curve of his face, the lightened stubble rough under my fingertips …  
"You alright?" He asked, his voice thickened with sleep and heavy in the air, the whisper of the wind hollow behind his voice.  
"Yes," I whispered and smiled, the feel ached through me and I shifted down on the sheet, wincing as the movement ran raw between my legs and lay my head against his chest. He shifted his head down to mine, pressing his lips gently against the top and settling there, his arm wrapped around my bare back, his fingers absent mindedly brushing back and forth over the skin there. I settled my head more comfortably against his chest and curled my fingers to his skin to hold onto the feel of him and the sound of his heartbeat slowly ached beneath my fingertips.


	6. 1 5 Arise My Lord

**1.5 Arise My Lord (19) **

_Dear Father and Mother  
It is with the greatest of happiness's that I pen this letter to you both, written in my new apartments here at Court. As I am sure you both a Mr. Cromwell – who once served with you, Father – who has taken me as his mistress … _

I pulled the quill back from the page, the sharpened end stained with ink and splattered up the base and darkening the cloudy shaft. The delicate feathers at the tip ran back and forth over my lips and shivered down my spine, the faint memory of Grace and William chasing after and tickling me with one faded through my fingertips and I leaned back in the chair, the quill falling onto the page. It rested uneasily on its feathered edge, the curve of the point dangerously sharpened in its shadow across the page. I took a deep breath and tangled my fingers through the whitened string holding shut my bodice, the embroidered edges stitched on either side of the opening, the touch bumped underneath my fingertips. The words from the angle I sat at slanted further and curved and linked into one another until they became unreadable to my eyes, just markings on a page. I pulled at the edge of my dress, entwined the fabric and the more hardened touch curved awkwardly between my fingers. Grace's eyes swam through my mind, the forced smile on her lips that didn't touch them and instead something dark creased in their color, the cheer and congratulations in her voice that rang hollow of a million things that she wanted to say but couldn't bring herself to speak … I bit my lip, tears curled at the back of my eyes and threatening at the possibilities that she didn't love me anymore. Not as much, not in the same way … I sniffed deeply; pushing down the thought like it was a jagged knife and re-straightening, picking up the quill again and drawing it down the page in a scratch: _…As the both of you surely know Mr. Cromwell is an honorable and respectable man who has shown me nothing but the highest expressions of love and affection …  
_ "Sir Thomas Boleyn, you are by order and permission of His Majesty King Henry today created Lord Rochford," Thomas read, clips of his detailing visible through the cut of those standing in front of me, Lord Thomas Boleyn more clearly visible, knelt before the King with a sweep of red velvet and ermine fur hung over his shoulders and back. The King stepped before him in black and burnished gold, a sword delicately gripped in his hands and held before him, the faded light detailed over his face to soften their edges.  
"Arise, My Lord," he ordered, his voice deepened and Lord Boleyn stood, the cape falling better over his shoulders and carefully took the sword from him, his head bowed in respect and the movement shifting the purple velvet of the crown on his head. He stepped back to the line of men also edged in velvet in ermine, trumpets sounded and the King sat back onto his throne, pulling his cloak around him and the movement creasing its edges around him. A young woman hung in all black stepped from the door and passed us, by the hand of a young boy in orange clothing and his own cape, the faded light silvering the blonde neatly combed over his head. My heart ached at the sight of his sweet beauty and the nursemaid gently pushed him into the next room, the cape waved in his steps.  
"Henry Fitzroy," an announcer declared, Henry stepping cautiously through the room, his cape swinging gently in his steps as he approached the King and knelt.  
"Henry Fitzroy," Thomas read, his stance more clear to my eyes now and his own eyes glued to the page in front of him, curled at the ends. I smiled somewhat, my fingers dug into my hanging sleeves and the memories and thoughts of his lips against mine, his fingers entwined through mine own and the sound of his heartbeat like a wonderful reminder weaved between my fingertips with enough to them that I could grasp them as my own. "You are by order and permission of His Majesty King Henry today created Duke of Richmond and of Somerset and Earl of Nottingham." The King smiled faintly and a servant in all black stepped forward, a cushion on his hands with a small red and gold crown delicately placed on top. The King carefully took it and leaned forward to rest it on Henry's head, his hands delicately placed on either side as he fit it more comfortably on top of his head. He turned to his side and pulled a small covered sword from where I couldn't see and placed it into Henry's hands before he leaned over and pressed his lips to his cheek. My heart twisted warmly and I smiled as the King lifted Henry with a grunt and rested him upon his throne, trumpets again blared as the King sat on the throne next to him, Henry lightly pulling at the fur on his cape and oblivious to everything else.  
I carefully tugged the needle through the fabric, the twisted blue thread in an arc across the white sheet, tiny misshapes to my work sewn as a reminder to my lesser skills as a stitcher. I glanced over at Grace, her eyes lowered to her own stitching and her hair pulled over one of her shoulders in a sweep of curls and tangled in the flickered firelight. I lightly licked my lips and the dryness on my tongue, words caught and broken in my mind with half hearted promises to them that I couldn't fully piece together.  
"You look beautiful today Grace," I attempted and she slowly lifted her head as if unaware that I was speaking to her. "As you do every day." She stared at me for a moment, the deepened blue of her eyes that I loved so much darted back and forth of my face.  
"Thank you," she replied and lowered her eyes back to her work, her pristine stitches caught over her own cut of fabric.  
"Excuse me ladies," a voice said and I looked up to see the Cardinal standing before us in his neat cut of red and white fabric, his gold chain hung carefully around his neck. Something plummeted through my stomach, a sense of fear for the man with such obvious power and I slowly stood, setting my stitching onto the table between myself and Grace. "I am here to see Her Majesty."  
"Of course, Eminence," I said, curtsying so the blue and gold of my skirt creased in the movement and turned to the door, my hand on the cold metal of the handle.  
"Are you, Lady Charlotte?" He asked and I turned, the carved handle still hardened in my hand.  
"Yes, Eminence," I answered, the hang of my sleeve brushed and folded over my hand with the laced edge hung over the back of my palm.  
"Mr. Cromwell's mistress?" He asked, his head tilted somewhat with the hat on his head turned in its position.  
"Yes," I said, unable to keep back the smile to my lips and the lightness that filled my chest unbearably.  
"Huh," he said thoughtfully, the look creasing the lines by his eyes. "I thought he'd pick someone prettier." His words sliced through my chest and dug in deep, the feel of it and them stinging in my nose and to the back of my eyes with tears. I forced a smile and pushed open the door, my hand trembled with my resolve to hold back my tears, and stepped into the chamber, the light from the windows cut and detailed over the fine markings to the room. The Queen sat with her back to the fireplace and at a thickened table, her eyes lowered and a sadness sunk to her shoulders that pried at me with the desire to pull her into my arms.  
"His Eminence Cardinal Wolsey," I announced and dropped into a curtsey as the Cardinal swept by me with a sense of his own importance. I raised myself from where I almost knelt and went to the door, shutting it behind me with a click. Grace looked up as I stepped around to the seat and sat down; the fabric creaked underneath me in the heaviness of how I had sat. _…Someone prettier … _I swallowed hard, the feel like broken glass and the words echoed through me with digs into my skin with each recall. Something warm touched upon my fingers and I looked up to see Grace leaned forward, her hand wrapped tightly around me with sympathy painted deep into her eyes. I smiled and tightened my grip on hers, her fingernails dug into the back of my palm with a physical reminder to the childhood recurrence that burned happily through my chest.  
Anne lightly kicked at the grass, her head bowed and her hair falling over her shoulders, twisted by the lightened breeze, details to her darkened and heavy in a way that hurt me deep in my chest.  
"Are you alright?" I asked, the breeze pulling at the lightened layers of my skirt and sliding the softness of the folds against my dress. She raised her head, looking over at me and a shattered sadness to her eyes that she tried to force a smile against, the action trembled along her shoulders.  
"I'm fine," she insisted, the darkness of the hedges casting over her and softening out her edges, the gravel shifting under my shoes.  
"Anne," I persisted lightly, the knowledge of her sadness twisting and hurting me in a way that made me want to hold myself together. "You said you trusted me … do you no longer?"  
"No," she said suddenly and stayed in her movements, her fingers pressed to my wrist and the curled cuff that bunched softly at my wrist. "Of course I trust you, I just …." She paused on her words, the shades of blue in her eyes reshaping and burst in their delicate beauty in a way that crawled along my skin with the knowledge of how much more beautiful she was then anyone else I had ever known.  
"It's the King," she said finally with a sigh, the movement of it drawing itself along her like the release of words briefly made her weightless. "He has asked me to be his Mistress and I refused him." I stared at her, trying to link her words to her unspoken explanation, gain some sort of glimmer of intelligence but was left hollow in the attempt.  
"Why?" I asked as she continued walking, the cut of the shadowed hedges falling around behind her and the rounded pond now visible, its waters thickened with lily pads and the thin catch of the darkened water visible beneath.  
"Because to give into his request would be to give into his desires … which would result in him ultimately tiring of me," she explained slowly, her voice gentle as her skirts dragged along the gravel around the pond, my own catching and dusting with the dirt disturbed by our steps.  
"I can't see anyone growing tired of you," I replied in all honesty, a leaf crumbled underneath my steps. She turned to me with a smile, the sight of it warmed and softening whatever hurt I had felt at her unhappiness.  
"You are sweet to think so," she said, tilting her head somewhat as a bird whistled above us, the movement curving her neck and causing the sun to pool at the hollow of it.  
The gates opened with a creak, the curved designs of metal moving and drawing their shadows from the scattered candlelight back over us in decorated spirals. The Queen stepped forward, the crowd of beggars falling back and bowing, their dirtied clothes blending in their basic shades.  
"Good people of Lambeth," Bishop Gardiner began, the purple of his clothing swirled with darker shades and a cross hung at his throat and swung in his movements. "On this Good Friday the Queen's Majesty will distribute alms to you unfortunate but true and loyal subjects of their Majesty's and the Christian spirit of Charity and Love." He stepped back somewhat, bowing and making way for the Queen who smiled in response and turned to one of her ladies to gather coins from the cloth purse she held. I opened the flap of my own purse, the coins inside gathered and shifting in my movement so that they clinked together. The crowds started to murmur and gather as the Queen moved through them, and I turned to the man at the gate, pulling a coin from the purse and pressing it to his dirtied hands.  
"Bless you," I said quietly as he slid back the coin and held it to his chest like it were beyond precious. I turned to the next woman, a woolen shawl wrapped around her head and in direct contrast to the thickly embroidered black veil upon my own.  
"Bless you," I whispered to her, pressing another coin into her own hands and her fingers grasping weakly at my own.  
"Bless you, sweet Lady," she murmured like a prayer, holding the coin to her chest and her eyes lowered to it in her hands. Her words softened inside my chest and I smiled, turned to the next man and handing him a coin that blurred into the dirt of his palm.  
"Bless you," I said, as he turned to the woman behind me in hopes for another coin and I turned ahead to the next man standing there, the words I knew to speak already shaped on my tongue.  
"Bless you."  
I adjusted myself in the chair, the cloth backing to it creaking in my movements and the paper crinkling between my hands. The light from the window faded through them, the words staring through in intense curves and I ran my finger lightly over them, the thought of Father sitting at his desk writing each word burned through my mind. The rain tapped itself against the window, collapsing down the pane and painting its light upon the carpet like ugly splotches against and between the patterns. The fire crackled over top of the sound, the heat of the flames flickered over the bare spans of skin at my ankle not draped with my skirt. The door opened and I looked up as Thomas stepped in, a folder of papers held close to his chest and my breath caught itself in my throat and I straightened with a smile.  
"Hello," he greeted, setting the papers onto the table next to me, scattered against the jug of water settled there. He leaned over, his lips barely touching mine and he stepped over to the fireplace and rubbed his hands together for warmth, twisted shadows crawled over him. "What are you reading?"  
"Just a letter from my family," I replied, my lips tingled and I folded the pages together, their edges creased with the multiple times I had open and closed their paper.  
"Did you tell them?" He asked, glanced back over and the edges of his face tinted gold in the firelight.  
"I did," I said, running my fingers over the overly creased edge, the feel sending a shiver along my skin. "My parents give their congratulations and my brother William would like to challenge you to a duel." He laughed slightly, his hands still rubbed together for warmth and sparks burst from the logs charring in the grate. I smiled myself, pulling my skirts better around my feet and the movement rustled upon the carpet. _…More powerful then the Queen of England … _I froze, my fingers still clutched to my skirts, the words heavily broken through my chest and I straightened, forcing down their echo and the terror they rose in me. Thomas turned from the fire and walked over to where I sat, his head titled to look down at me and like a fire kindled in his own eyes burned and warm and never flickered in its light. He leaned down and lightly kissed me, his nose pressed to mine and my heart rate broken and uneven in its beats. He pulled away, his forehead pressed to mine before laying his lips against it gently, my hair tangled over and stepped away from where I sat. I smiled, the feel of it too hollow in the vastness of my chest now dedicated to loving him and settled back into the chair, reopening the pages of the letter with the paper crinkled in my hands.  
I carefully set the cup onto the plate, the clink of the metal on metal oddly loud in the near quiet room, the flames from the fire near buried in ash and the darkness more heavily flickered then the light. I set the fork and knife along the edge of the plate as well; their thin metal again clinked against the cup. I lifted the plate carefully, my nightgown caught against my feet in the movement and silently praying to myself that I wouldn't somehow trip and disrupt the Queen. A wail of pain echoed from the Queen's bedroom and panic jerked inside, the cup and plate falling from my hands in a clatter and I ran to the Queen's bedroom and pulled at the handle with trembled hands.  
"Majesty?" I asked breathless, the Queen curled upon the carpet with her face buried to the pattern and keeling wails broken from her lips that broken inside me like glass broken and crushed.  
"Majesty?" I asked and rushed beside her, collapsed next to where she lay and the burn of the rug curled through my nightgown and upon my knees. She barely raised herself from where she lay and grasped her hands to mine, burying her face to my lap. Panic drew itself more tightly inside me, uncertainty at what to do and to whether or not I should call for help, the questions cut back and forth through my mind. I cautiously lay my hands upon her hair and smoothed them through in faint remembrance to how Mother had soothed me when I was a child. Her tears stained lightly against the fabric of my skirt and I carefully reran my fingers through her hair, the strands twisted over my fingertips and her cries still echoed like she was broken inside and could never again be whole.

I cautiously stepped into the chamber, the carpet muffled my footsteps and the sunlight from the windows cutting the shadows of the room curved and enlarged. The Queen stood with her back to me, her shoulders stiff and the memory of them so collapsed and broken ran itself through me like a rusted blade cutting me raw.  
"Madam, Lady Salisbury is here," I announced, pulling at the corners of my stiffed skirt and curtseying, the fabric of it awkwardly creasing in the movement. Something broke along her shoulders and I stepped to the door to hold it as Lady Salisbury stepped through in a train of skirts and her veil, both clinging to the carpet in her steps. I walked past her to the door, Princess Mary standing in the doorway and her dress creased in bronze and gold, a cap to match upon her head that gave way to the ornate twists of her hair that poked at the opening in the back.  
"Your Highness," I greeted, dropped into another curtsey and she bobbed her head in respectful response, her eyes saddened and heavy in such direct contrast to the girl who had sweetly told her betrothal that she had a gift for him. I brushed past her carefully and into the adjoining chamber, closing the door behind me with a click and settled into the chair and picked up my stitching, the pattern I intended almost indiscernible in my uneven stitches. I picked up my needle set into the fabric at a slant and pushed it through farther, the red thread twisted over the cloth as it bleed through, a curved red line on the sheet of pure white. I pulled it tighter and then turned it to poke the needle through, the sharpened tip of the bone pointed through the fabric and I gripped it tightly to pull it through, the knot catching and breaking through with the edges frayed. Footsteps broke the near silence by the door and I quickly stood as it opened, my stitching fallen to the floor and I curtseyed as Lady Salisbury and Princess Mary passed, their skirts rustled over the carpet in tune to their footsteps. I re-straightened as they passed and stepped into the Queen's chamber, the Queen stared after the doorway and her eyes heavy with a sadness that bleed through her like a crippling poison. The look of it broke in my stomach and I tightened my grip on the door to close it behind me and leave her peace, the wood of it chasing after my skirts in my hurried steps.  
"Lady Charlotte," she called somewhat and I paused, my heart echoing and I reopened the door, glancing up as her gaze sadly took me in, her shoulders heavy and fallen with the jewels hung from her neck shivered in her broken breaths.  
"Majesty," I said, curtseying, my head rushed with a thousand possible things she could say and each one breaking at my heart beat with fear.  
"Sit," she said kindly, gestured to the chairs by the fire; their carved backs flitted in their shadows from the fireplace. I gently closed the door behind me as she swept over to one of the chairs and carefully sat in it, the gold of her bodice glittered in their firelight and the pearls stitched into it rounding their shadows along the design. I stepped over to where she had gestured, each step painfully loud in my ears and pulled out the chair, the grate of the legs on the floor cringing down my spine and I settled into it carefully, my skirts collapsed around me with the deepened gold spirals spun in their shadows. I clenched my fingers together as she stared at the embroidered cloth on the table, the fringe thinly stretched in its shadow. I waited, the silence suffocating and pressing into my breast with the will to quiet my heartbeat that rang in my ears and seemed to pulse through the entire room.  
"You are mistress to Mr. Cromwell?" She asked, suddenly looked up and her accent sweetly softening the edges of her words.  
"Yes, Majesty," I answered, running my fingernail along the lace stitched into my cuff. She nodded slowly, already knowing the answer before she asked the question and sighed deeply, the coat falling as her shoulders did, the gold, green and red creasing as she folded her hands piously in front of her.  
"Do you love him?" She asked, turned to me again and the firelight softening the lines of her face, the details to her that made me hurt in their grandeur.  
"With all my heart and more," I replied, uncertainty spelling itself in my mind, confusion at her questions. She nodded, again knowing the answer before she had asked.  
"And does he love you?" She asked, her words caught somewhat and she forced a smile to cover the sound like cut glass had shattered itself in her throat.  
"I believe he does," I answered quietly, my uncertainly growing at her words and the sadness more deeply carving into her eyes. She nodded and her gaze fell from mine, her thoughts gone and elsewhere as if she could see something I couldn't, feel something I didn't and couldn't know …  
"The heart is a … is a peculiar thing, Lady Charlotte," she said suddenly, her eyes raised and the burst of tears not yet formed hung in them. "It can be the most powerful thing we possess in its greatness and strength and yet … and yet it can be the most easily broken. Most easily swayed upon our desires and dreams … one moment whole heartedly set on one desire … the next moment it's complete opposite." She paused, her fingers lightly touched to the necklace at her throat, a million secrets to her words that I couldn't piece together in my lower intelligence, a million burdens weighing on her and breaking at her piece by piece …  
"And that is why I have faith," she said, her words stronger and less broken now, a fierceness to her eyes that burned in its own intensity. "Because faith … true faith can never be broken. Can never be swayed. It is … stronger then the heart and in all things … more powerful." She stared past to where I still sat, her fingers still touched to the jewels at her throat and a determination wrought in her eyes that seemed to hum in the air, the feel and note of it poisoning me with an awe that broke every other emotion that I had ever felt. She nodded slightly and turned to look over at me, remembering that I still sat there and gestured for me to leave, her fingers falling from her throat and rested to fold back onto her lap. I rose from the chair and curtseyed in the space between the seat and table and stepped around it, my footsteps echoed on the floor and pulsed to my heartbeats. I gently pulled open the door and turned to see her still seat, whatever fight that had burned inside her now faded and her shoulders again sunk, her eyes to the table like it portrayed a million things I couldn't see and I quietly closed the door to leave her in her broken peace.  
I ran my fingers over the folds of the gown, the shades of red creased between my hands in their hinted elegance, the bronzed detailing stitching carefully to the cuffs and collar. I slid the dress from the chest, the folds collapsing and I held it to my own nightgown, my fingers pinched to the skirt and shifting so the folds blurred their edges. I ran my fingers down the cut of red fabric into the brown, twisting the layers and stepped over to the partially open door, Thomas seated through it at his desk and bent over the papers with the candlelight darted back and forth over the pages to lengthen and shorten their words. I carefully walked through the door, the movement of the door creaked and he looked up from his work, his eyes wearied and I let the gown in my arms fall over my folded arms and out of sight to his eyes.  
"Sweetheart," he smiled, straightening himself in his seat and the affectionate name flickered in my chest. "What are you doing?" My fingers hesitated on the fabric and I carefully lifted it so the dress hung uncertainly over myself, the dress pulled at a widened stretch of cloth.  
"What do you think of this dress?" I asked, the words grating vainly in my ears, the question already hung in the air with no amount of uncertainty to recall them.  
"Why?" He asked, leaning back in his seat and the shadows of the firelight flitting at his collar. Embarrassment burned up my spine at the vanity of the question and I let the dress fall again over my arm.  
"It was for Charles," I admitted, blush curled in my cheeks and I pulled uncomfortably at the hung sleeves pointed and creased awkwardly.  
"Charles?" He asked in confusion, a darkness passed quickly over his eyes and vanished like I had imagined it.  
"Charles Brandon," I said, the feel of his name softened to my lips. "He is to return to Court soon and I wished to look well for when he did."  
"Ah," he said, nodding somewhat, but the darkened look again passed to his eyes with enough distinction to assure myself that it was there. "Then I guess you have not heard." Panic twisted like an iron grip in my chest and I stepped back with the movement shattered through my body. "The Duke of Suffolk has been banished from Court." The panic alleviated somewhat, now broken with a confusion and he stood from his desk, papers held awkwardly in his hands and his eyes lowered to them.  
"Banished? Why?" I asked, hugging the dress to my chest and gripped my fingers to the cloth, questions spun dizzying through my mind in thin blurs of words.  
"He has married Princess Margaret, the King's sister without his permission," He said and lifted his eyes, his fingers caught between the pages in his hands.  
"Isn't that treason?" I asked in confusion, shifting in my stance and the bristles of the carpet broken under my bare feet.  
"It is," he nodded and I paused, the words falling through my mind with alternated pressure to each one. I slowly nodded and folded the gown more carefully until it fell into a roll around my arm.  
"Perhaps I shall visit him sometime," I suggested and raised my eyes to his, the darkness to his own faded and he smiled in response.  
"Perhaps," he agreed and leaned down and lightly kissed me, his upper lip caught between mine and he pulled away gently, a tingle hummed throughout my skin.  
"Good night," I murmured, turning back to the doorway and sliding through the partially open door, the gown still wrapped tightly around my arm and the purpose of it now lost and near forgotten.

I ran my finger over the cooled metal, the deepened color of the ale faded into the color of the cup. Music raised itself in its notes, Anne and the King visible through the cut of couples, their heads respectfully bowed to one another and then raised, her steps gracefully sweeping around him where he stood and her eyes never leaving his face. I smiled slightly and pressed the rim of the cup to my lips, the sharp taste of the ale broken on my tongue and burned through my throat. I lowered the cup, my lips pressed together to prevent myself from making a face in forfeit of propriety.  
"Don't like the ale?" George asked in amusement, lifting his own cup to his lips and sipping deeply, the taste not visibly affecting him.  
"It is a taste to get used to certainly," I admitted, my fingertip touched to the raised engraving on the side, Anne and the King spun in their steps, each one tensed and held close like they couldn't bear to draw themselves any farther apart.  
"Indeed," he agreed, taking another sip, the sound of him gulping it down prominent in the air. I raised my eyebrows slightly as he apparently finished his drink and held it back to his chest, the stain of the drink wetting his lips somewhat. He glanced down at me and I forced a smile in reply, my own nearly full drink pressed to my own chest, creased against my breast.  
"Are you enjoying your time at Court, My Lord?" I asked, clearing my throat somewhat, the bite still burned like a persistent hum in my throat and stomach.  
"I am," he said, a servant that he has gestured over pouring him another glass with his head bowed respectfully. "It is a place of great merriment and cheer, where men and women from all over come to make their fortune … what is there to dislike?" He turned to smile at me as the servant bowed and turned away, again lifting the cup to his lips and sipping deeply.  
"Move aside! Move aside!" Someone yelled in thickened demand, the music faded by the sound and the dancers turned to the distribution. "Get off …"  
"I bring most important news!" Another man yelled, his voice desperate and the appearance of a darkened man broken from the crowd outside the hall, two guards holding him back. "Your Majesty! Rome has been sacked!"  
"Let him through," the King commanded, confusion at the man's words collapsed in my stomach and yet darkened by their edge. The guards stepped aside and the man marched through in great purpose, his cloak fanned about him as he stopped before the King and bowed, half breathless.  
"Your Majesty, I bring must terrible and calamitous news," he began, his voice thickened and I stepped somewhat closer to George in a sudden fear only partially formed and darkened in my chest. "Rome has been captured and sacked by the German and Spanish mercenaries of the Emperor. They have plundered and befouled its churches. Destroyed its relics and Holy churches. Tortured and killed thousands of its priests." A heated sickness and horror burned in my stomach and I set a hand to my lips to hold back the feel, tears prickled in the back of my eyes at the flitted images in my mind of blood and gore.  
"What of his Holiness?" The King asked in attempted calm, his shoulders raised and fallen in his struggle.  
"The Pope is a prisoner in the Castel Sant'Angelo," the man said, his words quieter and more heavy, the King scoffing as if it were impossible for the situation to be any different.  
"He is the Emperor's prisoner," he said in darkened disbelief, his eyes dangerously turned to the man.  
"Yes," he replied, an edge of his own fear to his words. The King's breaths more visible came in faster and he turned to where the Queen sat, the movement twisting the gold of his shirt. She stared back with her eyes saddened, for all the world looking and being the World's most gracious and innocent woman. The King marched away in angered steps, the crowd parting as he did so and gathering together in hushed whispers. I handed my still full cup to George least he disturb a servant for more and carefully made my way through the broken crowd. Anne's shape cut itself through the throng, the paled flow to her gown faded to her skin and a lost look to her eyes that tore at me rawly. I quickened my steps to her side and slid my hand into hers, my nimble fingers catching and entwining through her own. She looked over at me, a fear to her eyes born from something I didn't quite understand or quite grasp and she tightened her grip within my own.  
I ran the brush through my hair, the bristles catching along my scalp in tingles that lined down my neck. The fire crackled, its shadow licked over the carpet and against my nightgown, the woolen feel of my robe. My hair frizzed at the edges for the persistence of my brush strokes and I paused, the action hollow in the memory of Grace doing the same. The memory of it ached in my chest and I set the brush to the table, the back reddened from the light and stood, everything suddenly softened under my feet and I gripped the edge of the table, the lines of the wood dug under my fingernails, everything blurred into one another and burning to my eyes.  
"Charlotte, you alright?" Thomas asked from the bed, his voice distant to my ears and I blinked hurriedly, everything fading back to its place and sharpening to its original form. I swallowed hard, my head still swirled but the floor beneath me again firm and I set a hand to my stomach to hold back the unsettled feel.  
"Yes, I'm fine," I insisted and cautiously released my hold onto the table and made my way over to the bed and slid in amongst the quilts.


	7. 1 6 True Love

**1.6 True Love (20)**

_… And from what I gather of what ails you I must with the greatest of happiness inform you, my dear Charlotte that you are with child …  
_ I raised my eyes from the letter, the page fallen to my lap and the feel of it heavy with the words it read. _…With child … _I set the letter to the table and carefully stood and stepped over to the mirror set on an angle upon the desk. I turned to the side; my skirts spun carefully around my legs in a blur of red and set a hand to my stomach, the flatness only disturbed by the light bunching of the bodice. My reflection followed my movements and I ran my hand more gently over my stomach, searched for any sign, any physical change to give me greater reassurance. My hand slid to my hip, barely at an angle from my stomach and my heart seemed to stop in its beats. I grazed my hand again and felt it, the slightest and almost unbearably unnoticeable bump to my stomach. My bump. My stomach. My child. My face broke into an uncontrollable grin and a sob broke in my chest, both my hands now to the bump and the smallest and yet most poignant weight pulsed inside and laced to my veins with a happiness that hummed and broke through my entire body. My child.  
I twisted my fingers together in nerves, the thin creases of my bodice caught between my fingers and gently brushing over the bump. I bit my lip to restrain a grin that wrestled in my chest and took a deep breath, the feeling spun through my head in a sudden lightness that shifted uncertainly under my feet. The door banged open and I spun, the move almost unsettling me and Thomas half ran into the room, his eyes quickly searching and falling onto me with a twist of near panic.  
"Sweetheart, what is it?" He asked, coming to stand before me, his eyes desperately taking me in for some sign of worry or aliment.  
"Nothing, I am alright," I assured him, his hands holding at my wrist and his thumbs pressed to the bone there near hidden under the creases of my cuff. His brow creased with confusion, his lips moved with half formed words and I smiled at him breathlessly, every inch of me full and aching with my words. "I am with child." His eyes widened and his brow smoothed itself over, all tension and fear from his shoulders collapsed and a small smile crept to his lips.  
"Are you certain?" He asked, his hands moved from my wrist and now to my elbows and I twisted my fingers into the ridged fabric of his shirt.  
"Yes, I am," I said, biting my lip to hold onto a shred of composure, his smile widened and he kissed me, his lips gentle against mine and I pressed deeper as he pulled away. He leaned his forehead to mine and I closed my eyes, every part of me burst and ached with something I couldn't bear, a happiness that went beyond anything I had ever before known.  
I gently pressed my fingers to the door and it fell open with a prolonged creak, the shuddered flames from the candles fallen in broken shadows and sparked through the thin lace of the curtains around Anne's bed. I stepped further into the room and shut the door carefully behind me, my skirts rusted around my ankles and the turn pulled at the already tightened fold over my stomach, the edges rounded and barely hidden under the cut of my dress. I carefully walked to the bed, Anne visible behind the sheen of curtains and the details of it turned to the light and sparkling down its length. I gently moved aside the curtain; the delicately hung edges softened against my hands, and knelt onto the bed to crawl beside her. The mattress sunk under my weight and the patterns on the quilt creased and folded as I moved beside her and settled to the pillow, the embroidered flowers mildly pressed against my back. She lightly turned herself towards me, her hair fallen to touch my shoulders and the shattered candlelight gathered over the flowered design of her dress.  
"What is it?" I asked quietly, my voice almost breaking the haunted atmosphere that her sadness provoked, the misery to her eyes cutting and carved into my chest. "Why are you sitting in the darkness?" She didn't move, the curl of her eyelashes painted over her cheeks and the shadows twisted through her eyes. I waited, my hand fallen to my stomach and my fingers absentmindedly twisted back and forth over the rounded shape.  
"Can I still trust you, Charlotte?" She asked, her eyes turned to me and a silent pleading in them that crumbled and cracked at my heart.  
"Of course," I promised, the feel of it crushed through my chest with the unspoken knowledge that nothing could make me betray her trust. She nodded and turned her head more settled to the pillow, her eyes fallen and stared past me to where I couldn't see.  
"Everyone is suffocating me," she said quietly, her lips barely moved enough to shape her words. "Controlling me. I feel like I cannot trust anyone anymore. It's dangerous now and people are going to be hurt." I stared at her, her gaze shadowed and the candlelight darkening the exotic details to her face. She slowly sat up, her hair fallen to her bare shoulders and the delicate detailing to her collar carved over her breasts. She slowly turned to me, her eyes reshaped with an ached sadness and attempted a small smile to her lips.  
"When I am Queen will you promise not to abandon me? To never leave my side?" She asked, the light framed behind her on the sparkled surface of the curtains and further confirming my hold on the belief she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I sat up myself, the shift setting pressure on my stomach and my bodice creased over it in cuts of alternated fabric.  
"I promise on my honor to never abandon you," I declared, my words heavy with their own weight, contrasted to the image of the Queen and all her kind beauty and faith. She smiled, the light of it sparked fire to her eyes and they glanced at my stomach and froze. I lowered my own eyes to my stomach, the curve noticeable under the fabric with the rounded edges darkened and stood out by the candlelight.  
"You are with child," she remarked, her eyes again raised to mine and I didn't fight the grin that burst to my lips.  
"Yes," I said excitedly, twisted my fingers to the fabric and the weight pressed back with the unbearably wonderful knowledge that I was carrying my child. She smiled wider and wrapped me into her arms, the feel of her dress crushed to mine and her hair intoxicatingly thick in my face.  
"The Lady Charlotte Duchford," the Servant announced, stepping aside to the door and his head bowed in respect, the action crunched his high collar to his chin. I stepped through the doorway; my heart pulsed and tensed in every inch of me in an unbearable anticipation, Charles seated at his desk and a quill delicately held between his fingers. The anticipation shattered inside me, breaking apart my insides and re-piecing themselves with the reality of his every detail. A grin spread over his lips and the servant closed the door behind me with a click that I barely heard.  
"Charles," I greeted and dropped into a curtsey, the bend creased the purple silk of my gown and loosening itself around my middle. He moved quickly around his desk and every sense of propriety inside me broke and I ran towards him and he caught me up in his arms and spun me into the air. I dug my fingers into his jacket and buried my face into his shoulder, a hundred moments held close in my fingers suddenly reborn and sharpened in their intensity. He set me back to the floor and I stumbled on my footing, breathless and I laughed somewhat the world twisted and lightened in everything. He grinned wider and lightly touched his finger to my nose and I ducked my head as blush fell up my neck and to my cheeks as he pressed his forehead to mine and I felt him everywhere.  
"So tell me how is Princess Margaret?" I asked, settled back to the carved back of the chair, my fingers pulled at my bodice to pull it wider around me and better hide my swollen stomach.  
"She is … well," he replied, his words paused over his answer and his head lowered as he poured me a glass of ale. I adjusted myself in the seat, my stomach turned with the idea of the drink and he settled down the jug and sat into his own seat, his own cup in his hands.  
"And you?" I wondered, twisted my fingers in the lace of my cuffs and the bands of embroidery around my arms tugged in the movement.  
"I am also well," he smirked, raising the cup to his lips and sipping deeply. My eyes caught on the miniscule movements that he made in order to memorize them and he lowered the cup and rested it to his knee. "Any particular reason why you asked after Margaret first?"  
"Mother always told me to save the best for last," I replied simply and Charles laughed, his eyes sparked with it and I mulled over my own words to try and find the humor in them.  
"And how are you, Miss Charlotte?" He asked, a smile to his lips above his cup and his fingers pressed to the decorated rim. I pulled at my bodice again, the weight beneath it pressing against the back of my mind and blocking any other thought or response from my mind.  
"I am with child," I answered, my words stunted with uncertainty and he froze, his eyes slowly raised to mine and something sharpened in them.  
"With whose child?" He asked slowly, each word heavy and darkened and I twisted my fingers above my stomach, suddenly nervous with Thomas's name on my tongue.  
"A Mr. Thomas Cromwell. He's the King's Secretary," I explained, the sharpness in his eyes stirring confusion in my chest with the need for me to name the look. He nodded slowly, any happiness from him gone and replaced with something jagged and broken. He set down his cup and stepped around the lowered table between us and stood in from me, his hands set on the arm rests of my chair and his face inches from mine.  
"If he hurts you," he began, every word heavy and slow, his eyes darted through mine with a look broken with something that danced on the tip of my tongue in a tease. "Then I will make sure that he is pays for it a thousand fold." His words sank and carved through me with bleeding force and I swallowed on the feel of them, the taste strong and like copper.  
"He won't," I assured him, his eyes broken in their color and I reached out a hand and gently lay it on his cheek, the stubble roughened under my palm. "I promise you, he won't." Something shifted in his eyes and along the lines of his person like a wonderful poison through his veins and he nodded slowly, a crackle of fire to his eyes that curled and buried inside me warmly. I let my hand fall back to the soft twist of my gown and he turned back to his seat, the firelight burned along the hem of his leathered jacket. He settled back into the chair with a sigh and again lifted the cup to his lips and drank, the move more drawn out then before as his Adams apple bobbed as he gulped before drawing the cup from his lips and resting it to his knee.  
"I heard you were banished," I said slowly, the obviousness to the words cringing inside me and I lined the embroidery of my gown under my fingernails. He smirked slightly, the warmth to it darted with firelight along his cheeks.  
"I am," he said simply and leaned forward to pour himself some more ale, the surface sparking off the light of the fire and burying into the sheen.  
"And how is that?" I asked, the stupidity of the words burned on my tongue but he grinned further as he set his now full cup back to his knee.  
"It has its good days and bad days as life in any place does," he answered, the cup in his fingers gestured and the light curved over it.  
"Do you miss Court?" I asked, straightening against the back of the seat and my toes dug to the carpet under my skirt with the movement of my knee creasing the fabric.  
"I miss you," he said softly, all humor gone from his eyes and darkened with a deepness to them that seemed to burrow through him to the very core. I blushed and lowered my eyes, the feel of it burned along me like lace ghosted over my skin.  
"Perhaps I can help," I suggested, lifting my eyes again and his eyebrow delicately raised itself.  
"Help?" He asked carefully, his head tilted in the move and the shadows darkening over the lines of his jaw.  
"With you coming back to Court," I offered, a smile breaking its touch on my lips at the thought.  
"Ah and how would you do that?" He asked, raising the cup but not drinking, an amused intrigue set to his smile and his eyes.  
"I have connections," I said slowly, tasting the words on my tongue and the uncertainty behind them. Could I ask Anne for a favor in this? Speak to the King himself if necessary? I swallowed on the broken feel of the thought, the fear at the possibility of having to speak to him again.  
"Well then I toast to that," he congratulated, lifting the cup higher and taking a sip from it deeply. I smiled at his words, something turned and buried in my stomach as he lowered the cup and smiled shyly in response.  
I ran my fingers lightly over the swell of my stomach, the swollen curve of it pressed to the softened brown of my dress and stretched at the loosened ties holding it closed.  
"You're getting so big," Anne smiled the flecks of light from the window pinking over her skin and touching it with a warm glow. I grinned down at my stomach, my hands folded neatly over it in a protection I didn't fully understand and yet felt in all intensity.  
"My Lords and Ladies, the Queen," a voice announced and I turned as the crowd scattered to clear a wide breadth, the Queen stepping forth and the red and gold of her gown swept over the dusted color of the floorboards. A conflict twisted in my stomach, broken in shards inside of me and I glanced over at Anne who stared at the Queen with a look of someone accepting a challenge. Bitterness coated my tongue and everyone swept into bows and curtsey's as the Queen passed, the gold of her headdress glittering and to the eyes of everyone carved into the image of perfection. A Lord knelt before her, pressing his lips to her hand and the move creasing over the noble details of his clothing.  
"Lord Darby," she greeted warmly, a smile touched to her lips.  
"My Queen," He declared, his voice deepened and he re-stood in a fall of his robe. She continued her steps and I sank into a curtsy, my legs protesting in the pressure of the move, Anne fallen beside me as well with her hands piously folded in front of her. I re-stood and everyone began to fall back into their usual chatter, the Lord Darby bowing his head at Anne with his fingers touched to the feathered brim of her hat. She curtseyed again in respect, her head raised and a catch of the light broken to her eyes. Something touched to my arm and I turned to see George at my elbow, a scroll tightly gripped in his hands.  
"I have something for you," he addressed to Anne and she smiled in kind response. He unraveled the twisted red ribbon holding it closed, entwining its twirl through his fingers and smoothed open the page. On the thickness of the paper was a sketch of a falcon with its talons sunk deep into the flesh of a pomegranate. Anne carefully took the edges between her fingers, holding it with a certain heaviness that seemed to clip at her skin.  
"You see? The falcon is your crest and the pomegranate is hers," George explained, glancing behind him to check for eavesdroppers and turned back with an amused wink. Something tore unbearably at my chest, the grotesque image of the bleeding pomegranate and the weight behind it raw and broken inside of me. Anne crumbled the page between her fingers, the edges roughened and twisted in disjoint.  
"You still don't understand, do you?" She asked, her voice lowered and touched with an emotion I couldn't read or force myself to understand. "It's not a game, George. It's dangerous." She forcibly tore herself from him side, her hand found in mine and sweeping me along beside her, her fingers tensed and fierce to my palm. She nodded in forced politeness to the courtiers as they swept passed, her skin seeming to hum with her anger and I entwined my fingers through her own in silent attempt to calm her.  
"Sweetheart, Mistress Boleyn," Thomas said, suddenly standing before us and swept to a bow that Anne returned in kind. My heart race pulsed in its beats, tensed and taut through my veins and cracking through my bones.  
"Mr. Cromwell," she greeted kindly, a sweetened smile touched to her lips.  
"I have some news," he began, stepping closer and his voice lowered, his eyes darted with a sudden uncertainty. "The King has dispatched a good man to see the Pope with letters about the divorce. A Dr. Knight."  
"I know Dr. Knight, he was my tutor," Anne smiled, the wonderful sweetness to it crumbled inside me like crushed glass.  
"Indeed," Thomas answered, his own smile touched to his lips in response. "All things connect." She nodded and slipped her hand from mine, her eyes briefly glanced to me as she stepped to the pillar in a swirl of deepened red, her fingers touched and frozen to the stone.  
"Sweetheart," Thomas repeated and stepped closer to me, his head bent and his lips grazed over me in ached gentleness. He pulled away and I smiled, blush imprinted along my skin. "How are you feeling?" His eyes fell to my stomach, visibly swollen through the folds of brown held back by the already tightened lace.  
"I am feeling quite well thank you," I smiled, my fingers pressed along the rounded swell. "We both are."  
"Good," he grinned, the look and feel it broke in me almost unbearably ached and making me hurt all over. "I must return to my work, if you'll excuse me." He raised my hand from my stomach and brushed his lips to the knuckle, the feel curled and laced through my blood. He let it fall and I stepped past him to where Anne waited, a warm smile graced to her lips. I fell in step beside her and let myself smile back at her, the feel like the two of us had secret that only we understood, a lace hung over the world and leaving it broken and unimportant to our own eyes.  
I turned to the side in the mirror, the shape and girth of my stomach shifted in the reflection and my fingers pressed along its swell.  
"I'm getting so big," I remarked, the words seeming to dig its touch into my lower back with a reminder of the increased weight.  
"It's bound to happen," Thomas said simply from the bed, papers strewn over the sheets and his eyes darted to them. I ran my finger again over the curve, the feel of the skirt gathered along my fingertips.  
"Do you think I'll have a boy or a girl?" I asked, turned to the other side, my skirt played softly against the tops of my bare feet.  
"There's no way of knowing, not until you give birth," Thomas replied, glancing up at me and then back to his work in a single swift movement. Birth. A coldness dug in my throat at the thought, the horror stories I had heard about the pain and the blood. And the death. I swallowed the thoughts and stepped over to the bed, the move tensed to my back as I settled against the pillows and pulled the quilt around me, Thomas moving the papers to allow room for me.  
"Which do you want?" I asked, leaned back and sunk into the pillow, my stomach a disruptive bump that gathered under my nightgown in folds.  
"I can honestly say that I don't care," he said, tossing me a small smile and his eyes again lowered to the pages. I smiled and entwined my fingers through the robe, the imprint of the wool pressed along my hand. A thought grinded its way through my mind and fell my touch short and frozen in its action.  
"You already have children … don't you?" I quietly asked, tears pressed to the back of my eyes with painful pressure. He paused beside me, his hands still held in the papers but his eyes unseeing them.  
"Yes," he replied, his gaze falling over to me. "Yes, I have a son. Gregory. I had two daughters but … they died." My heart sunk and tore and I met his eyes, a sadness written to their edges that seemed to hum and tense to his very core.  
"I'm sorry," I murmured, the words barely broken on my lips. He snapped myself from wherever he had briefly sunk and forced a smile, turned again to his work.  
"It's not your fault," he insisted and I twisted my fingers again over my stomach, the ghosts of his two faceless, nameless daughters flitted at the back of my mind with a heaviness to the thought.  
"So you're married then?" I asked, uncertainty as to the question and whether or not I wanted the answer. He again froze, gathered the papers into his hands and setting them to the bed side dresser in a clutter of pages. He shifted closer to me, his side almost pressed to mine and my body tensed with the knowledge.  
"I am," he murmured, the words like knives that shed through my skin and I lowered my eyes from his, willing myself not to cry.  
"Does she know about me?" I asked, the tears I willed myself not to shed instead thickened in my voice.  
"Yes," he answered and gently laid his hand to my stomach, his fingers lightly entwined through mine. I nodded solemnly, a thousand more questions burned through my mind with not enough words to voice them. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to my stomach, my skin burned and glowed with the feel like a thousand stars gathered underneath my skin and he raised his head, his fingers touched to my hair. He pressed his lips to mine and I raised my fingers to his neck, the muscle of it tensed under my touch. He pulled away and rested his forehead to mine, his fingers entwining to mine at his neck, his eyes closed and his shoulders fallen in a sigh like he was completely at peace with the world and all that dwelled within it.  
"The King!" A voice announced and the crowd swept aside and into bows as the King pressed through them. I lowered myself, my skirts pooled at my feet as Anne also curtseyed, her head raised and a confidence touched to her as if she knew she was the most beautiful woman in creation, her confidence entwined to my knowledge. The King stopped in front of her, his feet visible in the cut of my eyesight and the air seemingly tensed with the knowledge of what they shared between them.  
"Sweetheart," he murmured, his hand outstretched for her and she took it and raised herself, her skirts unfurled from where they fell in waves onto the floor. She moved in closer to him, the fabric rustled on the wood.  
"The Queen!" Another voice called and I dared to raise my eyes to see her frozen in the hall, her eyes locked to the king and Anne so intimately stood together and the sight fallen through her in shards. Anne brushed past the King in a sudden panic, her fingers grasped at my sleeve and I rose to follow, our skirts gathered and rushed together.  
"No, no," the King spoke, his words loud in the dead silence and catching at Anne's arm. She stopped and I stilled beside her, my eyes lowered in whatever shred of respect I could retain while standing in the King's presence. "Wait." Footsteps echoed loudly and from the tilt of my head I could see the Queen storm from the hall, her ladies followed obediently behind. "If only for a moment." I could feel her turn to me, her hair touched to my shoulder in the move and I pressed my fingers to her skirt in silent reassurance. "Tonight I dine with your father and uncle."  
"Your Majesty, my father says that it is all beyond his deserving," Anne professed, a light tremble of a nameless fear to her voice.  
"No," the King breathed. "For when I'm with them I'm close to you." He kissed her hand and I felt her shift in the touch. "Here." She turned from me, fully stepped to the King and their hands clasped over a velvet purse hung with the roughened edges of whatever it held inside. "Another token of my affection. Take it. From your humble servant." He bowed his head and again lifted her fingers to his lips. A sudden fear laid its claim to me, a sudden understanding of whatever it was occurring spun around me in dazzled, crystallized light to leave me breathless and blind. An awareness of the gravity of what was to occur and yet how I had somehow fallen into its midst. His fingers pressed itself along the elegant curve of her neck, played itself through the dangled strands. "Your neck. I love your neck." He turned from her, his eyes darkened with longing and walked down the hall in echoed footsteps, the two grooms swept behind me and after. Everyone stood and resumed their chatter as if woken from a spell and I lifted my own head, my neck tensed with the hold and an ache pressed along the inside of my back. The men and women turned to stare at Anne, their eyes accused and their voices broken in angry whispers that needed no words to define them. A loss of understanding touched me at the thought, the consideration of anyone hating her and she turned to me, her fingers finding themselves entwined through mine. I followed after her, our fingers buried in her skirts and the whispers louder and more edged as we stepped through the crowd and to the hall. She pressed herself to a pillar, releasing her fingers from mine and burying them into the purse and drawing out a heavily jeweled necklace, the pearl and gold inlaid to it glittered in the softened light. I gently touched over the roughness of it, my fingers grazed with hers and her breasts raised and fallen in sudden almost inaudible gasps. I looked up at her as she fisted the necklace back into the purse and hurried down the hall, her skirts pressed to mine as I dutifully followed.  
"Your Majesty, Lady Charlotte Duchford," the servant announced, bowing and the move folding his shadow over the floorboards. I carefully stepped into the room, the broken light from the windows faded over the details of the throne and the King settled comfortably in its girth. A bitter knife ran itself along my throat and tongue and I sank into a curtsey, the weight pressed to my ankles and nearly causing me to fall, the thought of the impropriety the only thing that prevented it.  
"Lady Charlotte," he welcomed his head at a respectful tilt in greeting. I re-stood, the move pulled at my skirts too far stretched over my stomach.  
"Majesty," I murmured, daring to raise my eyes to fully take in the sight of him still seated, his fingers played over the arm rest. _… More Powerful then the Queen of England … _Everything inside me froze at the words, the fear they brought collapsed inside me like liquid ice.  
"Well?" He asked and I jolted at the sound of his voice, a different sort of panic shredded in my throat.  
"Your Majesty I have come on behalf of the a dear friend of mine, though not with not with his direct permission," I began, the words rehearsed and yet new to my tongue, heavy and light as if they could so easily loose themselves in the air unheard. He nodded the move a silent one in permission for me to continue. I swallowed the feel unnatural and wrong in my throat. "The Duke of Suffolk." He straightened at the name, a flash like the turn of a knife in the light cut through his eyes.  
"Yes?" He asked, his voice hardened and the sound crumbled through my knees as if to collapse me. I swallowed again, my fingers entwined in my lace cuffs as if they alone kept me from falling apart.  
"The Duke has found himself most wretched in his banishment, but a ghost trembled along the edges of the world and the glory that is your Court," I paused, the words rushed from my tongue and I saw a small smile to his lips that broke inside me with the smallest shred of hope. "As one who had for so long not known your presence I can in all honestly say that to live a life that is not touched by your grace is not a life at all. But a shadow and a dream of one. The Duke has come to face this shadow and cannot bear its darkness and burden any longer. In everything he is your most broken and miserable servant, only asking in your great mercy for a chance to plead to you his case. He was blinded by a love of true greatness that for a brief moment made him forget of his own great love for your Majesty and for that he shall for a thousand years repent and find regret. All he wishes is for a chance to be eclipsed in your glory once more and be determined whether he be so honored to be touched and remained in it again." I fell silent, suddenly breathless and the feel caught in my bodice and pressed to my ribs. The Kin stared at my thoughtfully, his fingers pressed to his lips and nearly hiding a smile of affection to them. He let his hand fall to his arm rest and stared at me for a moment, thoughts visibly shaped through his mind as if I were something found rare that he needed to place a name too.  
"Your words honor us," he spoke, his voice making me tremble in the thought of how simply and destruct fully he could abuse it. "The Lady Anne has told me much about you, Lady Charlotte and how you honor her with your friendship." Pink splayed itself to my neck and cheeks and I bit my lip to hide back a smile that seemed to hum in every inch of my skin.  
"The Lady Anne is in everything perfect," I assured him, the honesty of my words hung heavy in the air. He chuckled, his cheek again rested to his fist in the same calculated look.  
"You profess a strong case, My lady Charlotte and I shall give it much thought," he agreed finally and a relief broke itself free and nearly lost my balance in the feel.  
"Your Majesty is too kind," I professed, curtseying and my legs seized in the tensed hold. He smiled wider and gestured his head to the door and I dropped again in a twist of skirts and turned to the door, every part of my collided in the desire to spin and dance and yet propriety and the swollen weight of my stomach preventing me from doing either.  
I turned the page of the letter, the messy scrawl of William's words barely decipherable along the paper. I smiled, lightly fingering the splatter of ink stained, memories of trying to learn how to write while he found distraction in everything flitted through my mind. Grace … I flicked my finger at the imprint, my heart heavy at her eyes fallen at my news of pregnancy, her forced words on congratulations bitten on whatever she truly wished to say …  
"My lady?" A voice asked and I raised my eyes, a servant roughly my age stepped to the door with her hands neatly held in front of her. "The Duke of Suffolk is here." A grin twisted itself over my lips and I let the papers fall to the carpet and stood, every part of me held tight with an unbearable happiness and awareness of the simplicity of my dress. The Servant stepped to the side as Charles pressed through the doorway, the sheen of his clothing marred by a sweat broken at his throat. His face broken into a grin as he saw me and he rushed over to pull me into his arms, the feel and scent of him everywhere. I wrapped my arms around him, my fingers dug to his shoulders and the servant discreetly passed from the room with a near silent click of the door.  
"You're back at Court," I observed, pulled away and the obviousness of the question cringed on my tongue.  
"Yes, thanks to you," he grinned, a chuckle played over his words. I blushed, ducking my head in sudden shyness and he laid his fingers under my chin and raised my eyes to look at him. "All thanks you." His thumb ran itself under my chin and to the curve of my neck, a warmth followed after and the world faded to the barest simplicity of just me and him, his smile and his eyes … The door creaked open and I laid my eyes to it as Thomas stood in the doorway, something I couldn't read twisted in his eyes.  
"Thomas," I greeted, stepping over to him and Charles's fingers falling from my neck. Thomas looked up in surprise at my words and followed my outstretched arm hung with him robe to stand in front of Charles.  
"Thomas this is Charles, Charles this is Thomas," I introduced, a sudden excitement burned inside me at the knowledge of the two most important men in my life stood side by side.  
"Thomas," Charles greeted coolly, his eyes darkened dangerously and the once softened lines to his face sharpened.  
"Charles," Thomas spoke in response, the same sharpened edge run alongside him and seeming to burn in a heated anger and second emotion I couldn't name in the air between them.  
I stared into the crackled flames, the burn and light of it buried into the folds of my robe in darkened shapes. My fingers pressed along my stomach, a gentle pulse beneath my skin as the baby quickened, the memory of the first time it occurred shrouded in the fear I felt quickly followed by the unbearable happiness that had consumed me in entirety. The feel of the grass beneath my feet and the sparkle of sunlight pressed through the tree tops ghosted through my thoughts in sharpened tease. The door opened and closed, Thomas's footsteps followed in the sound as he stepped closer and knelt at my side, his fingers played along my loosened hair fallen over my shoulders. I sighed deeply, the feel softened over my skin and settling me with a peace that couldn't be touched by whatever lay broken or bleeding at the world.  
"What is it?" He asked quietly, his voice barely above a whisper and gentle in the air. I turned to him, the move turning the high collar of my robe along my neck.  
"I think I want to go home to give birth," I spoke, my words putting to thought whatever wordlessly had passed through my mind and weighed down in the sudden desire for them to come true.  
"Do you have everything?" Thomas asked, his footsteps almost too quick over the dirt and the weight of my stomach preventing me to follow in synchronized steps.  
"Yes," I assured him, my fingers lost in the heaviness and girth of my robe, the skirts trampled over my feet and dirtied at the hem. William looked up from where he rested to the carriage, absent mindedly inspecting over his nails in a satirical manner that he professed too well. I grinned at the sight of him and he looked up as I approached, his own grin played to his lips.  
"My Lady," he professed, bowing deeply in exaggeration with his hat gripped between his fingers in flourish. I blushed as he re-stood and half jogged over, pulling me into his arms and swinging me so my feet left and trailed over the ground. Everything spun in delirium and he set me back carefully to the gravel and I held onto his arms to regain my balance, the weight of my stomach pressed along my skin.  
"I can take it from here, good sir," he declared to Thomas, standing tall so that his head barely rose above Thomas's and his chest puffed out in continuation of his own presumed superiority. I smiled to him and turned to Thomas, my fingers leaving William's sleeve.  
"I will be only a few days," he assured me, his fingers tightly held in my own. "I promise." I nodded and he leaned to press his lips to mine, his hand still held in my own.  
"Ew, gross," William groaned, making a face and I blushed in further embarrassment, allowing him to take my hand and lead me to the carriage. I turned back to Thomas who stepped uncertainly on the gravel, a look of sudden loneliness to his eyes and set of his shoulders. I rested my foot to the step and slid into the carriage and to the seat, the bare softness of the seat pressed beneath me and William stepped after, tapping his fingers to the carriage door as he pulled it closed. The carriage rolled off to a start and he fell into the seat next to me, adjusting himself to sit better. The shape of Thomas cut itself from my view through the window, a pang echoed in my chest at the thought of being parted, broken with a sudden overwhelming anticipation and happiness hung in my every inch.  
"Why are you smiling?" William asked, catching the sight of it and his brow creased as to why. I slid my hand over his, my fingers linked into his and their roughness collapsed through the smoothness of my own.  
"Because I'm going home," I said quietly, the word heavy in the air and in my heart and yet lightened in the knowledge it released me with. William rolled his eyes and I grinned further, the baby pulsed and tensed inside my belly and I leaned my head to his shoulder and closed my eyes.


	8. 1 7 Message to the Emperor

**1.7 Message to the Emperor (21)**

Henry nestled himself closer to my breast, his head buried against it and his eyes scrunched shut to collapse the rest of his face in wrinkles. I smiled down at him, my chest ached and every part of me full and bursting as if my entire life I had been hollow and only now knew what it felt like to be complete. I gently lifted him, pressing my lips to his forehead and he dug his wrinkled fists at my chin, his fingers fragile and twisted in their hold.  
"He's perfect," I murmured, drawing away and every part of me now ached as if I wanted to laugh and cry and couldn't decide between them.  
"He is," mother smiled, folding the blanket she held carefully so that the edges of them fell together. I adjusted my hold on him, the tininess of his frame burrowed in the crook of my arm and making it as if he had belonged there all along. "He'll grow up to be very handsome."  
"Beautiful," I murmured and he smacked lightly at his own lips, his tongue barely caught between them. "I want another."  
"Another?" Mother asked in surprise and I tore my gaze from him to meet her eyes, her forehead creased in amused incredulity. "You want another, already?"  
"I want a hundred," I confessed, the impossibility outweighed by the greatness of love that bore itself through me in its own claim. I turned my eyes back to Henry's face, my fists pressed to his face and mewing lowly on his lips. "I want him to have a brother and a sister. I want him to have everything he could ever want and more." Mother snorted lightly, the blanket now lain onto her lap and the laced edges stood out against the faded green of her gown. I ran my finger down his fattened cheek, the softness trembled underneath my touch and I again pressed my lips to his forehead, resting there and inhaling the sweetness of his scent.  
"You seem to be doing well at Court," mother spoke, the words shaped as if she had numerously practiced them and now barely filled the gap her rehearsals had prepared them for. "Befriended to the King's closest advisor, his mistress and … the King himself." I raised my eyes, the words exaggerations broken in the air and barely eclipsed by their own reality.  
"The King? I've only spoken to him once or twice," I confessed, pressed further against the pillows and Henry nestled better in my hold.  
"That's more than your sister," mother pointed out, her head tilted and the graying strands of her hair fallen to her shoulder. My heart panged, denting hollow inside me and I traced the lines of Henry's face, suddenly sad in the edges of my being.  
"Have you heard from her?" I asked quietly, my memory defeated of our last words to each other and what could have possibly been behind them. Mother sighed, tossing the blanket to the chair by the bed, gripped to the seat of it and held there precariously.  
"I have. Her letters are the ones that have detailed your progress at Court as you seem so against bragging them yourself," she said, a smile tugged at her lips and pained at something beneath her words that I couldn't decipher.  
"Is she still coming?" I asked, the fear at the contrary thickened in my voice.  
"Yes, she'll be here tomorrow," she assured me, her eyes lowered to her hands uncertainly folded in her lap. I lowered my eyes to Henry again, his eyelids scrunched shut and his cheeks imprinted cheek along the skin. I touched my finger to the swell of his nose and he dug his fingernails into my skin, holding on tightly as if he never could let go.  
I rocked Henry gently in my arms, his head nestled to me and his fingers clasped tightly to the whitened fall of my gown. The scattered sunlight from the window pressed itself along the wrinkled skin of his forehead and turned gold the wisps of hair softened over his head. I raised my eyes to the window, the branches of the tree tapping itself precariously to the glass and the sun imprinting itself through the leaves. Footsteps echoed in the hall and I turned, the height of my collar pressed along my neck and the door opened to reveal Grace standing in its frame. My heart froze in my chest and my mind cleared itself of anything possible to say or do.  
"Grace," I said quietly, and carefully stood, Henry nuzzled against and gently placed him into his cradle. The darkened wood of it rocked in the move and I stilled it with my fingers, Henry burrowed himself against the softness of the bottom. I pressed my lips to his wrinkled head and re-stood, my fingers lost in the wideness of my sleeves and the basic steps I had taken now empty of what to do next.  
"Sister," she greeted, curtseying lightly and a velvet pouch and letter clasped tightly in her hands. "I see you are doing well."  
"I am," I confessed, the strange formality crumbled through me and at odds with the intimacy that this was once our shared room. "Shall we sit?"  
"Of course," she answered, neither of us moving from where we stood. "I brought you something." She held out the pouch and letter, the velvet of the pouch bumped with whatever it held inside. I reached out to take it, the velvet heavy in my hands and the wax holding the letter closed crusted with the King's seal. The King. I trembled as I held the pouch to my chest and carefully peeled at the wax to break forth the letter, an elegant scrawl swept over the page:  
_Dear the Lady Charlotte Duchford  
It has come greatly to our attention that you have delivered of a son, named for our person. In congratulations of these great tidings and great honor we deliver to you a gift which we hope finds you great satisfaction and pleasure.  
Signed by the Hand of King Henry and the Lady Anne Boleyn  
_I reread the words, uncertain that they were what I had truly read. _Signed by the Hand of King Henry … _By his own hand … _  
_"What does it say?" Grace asked, a subtle bitterness woven into her voice.  
"It's a congratulations from the King," I faltered, the words already hung in the air and unable to reclaim them. I tucked the letter under my arm and gripped inside the pouch, my fingers clasped onto a thin coldness born against my skin. I slid it out from inside the velvet, in my hands placed a thin golden brooch, the details like delicate lacework and three opaque pearls hung from it dangled. My lip barely parted at the sight, the great attention to the detail worn its way into my chest with a knowledge that it was more than I ever could deserve.  
"There must be some mistake," I attempted, unfolding the letter and scanned over the words _… Signed by the Hand of King Henry … _  
"It is addressed to you," Grace pointed out and I raised my eyes to her, her face closed to me and like a door shut to a beautiful room that I no longer had access to see.  
"I think he's kind of ugly," William remarked, his eyes squinted at Henry and his head turned as if it could somehow remedy his thoughts. "Couldn't possibly be my mouse's son."   
"Hush, he is beautiful," I protested, my fingers gripped under Henry's shoulders and pulling him onto my lap, my arm supported behind his neck.  
"Men cannot be beautiful," William retorted, pressed back against the tree and biting into the apple he held in his hand. Juice dripped down his chin and he wiped at it with the back of his hand. I shook my head with a small smile, Henry's eyes open and curious at the leaves hung in the tree above us, the light sparked through their cut. I turned again to William who held out the apple in silent question and I leaned forward to sink my teeth into its flesh, whatever propriety I had gained from my time at court for a brief moment gone in a swift and silent regain of childhood. I pulled away, chewing on the crunched fruit of it and pressing my fingers to my lips to rid myself of the juice and discreetly sweeping my fingers over the grass to dry them.  
"It's beautiful today," William observed, again squinted up at the sky, the half eaten apple forgotten in his hand.  
"It is," I agreed, balanced Henry to my chest and his bare feet dangled across my lap. I ran my fingers over their grooves, his skin softened under my touch and he jerked them back with a sputter at the tickle.  
"When you going back to Court?" He asked, his eyes turned to me and searching for the answer.  
"Thomas says that there are rumors of plague so until then I shall stay here," I replied, adjusting my hold around Henry's middle, his fingers tight into my arm and the feel dug through my skin and held everywhere.  
"I miss you when you're away at Court," he admitted quietly, his words barely above a whisper and I turned to him, his eyes write with a saddened sincerity that broke itself inside my chest. I reached for his hand and dug my fingers through his, his palm stained with the juice from the apple.  
"I miss you too," I promised and he smiled in response, his hand tightened in mine and he leaned forward to press his lips to my head, leaving my temple sticky and tangled to my hair fallen there. I smiled down at Henry who batted at my arm with his tightened fist, his face scrunched in a sort of concentration.  
"All right, he isn't _that _ugly," William conceded, rolling his eyes and again biting into his apple with a shattered crunch. I pressed my lips to Henry's ear, his fist outstretched and entangled through my hair, his fingers caught and pulled. Hoof beats dusted and I uncurled Henry's fingers from my strands and lifted my head, a horse galloped up the stone path with Charles seated on its saddle. A warmth curled itself along my skin and I stood, the simplistic fall of my skirt unfolding and I pulled Henry higher in my arms, his head rested to my collarbone with his fingers played along it.  
"Who's this?" William asked, also standing and tossing the apple at the grass so it rolled and laid precariously in the cut of the bite marks. A servant, George stepped from the stable and over to the horse, taking the reins as Charles tossed himself down in a collapse of robes to the stone. He grinned as he saw me and jogged over, the gold necklace hung by his shoulders clanked in his moves.  
"Charlotte," he welcomed as he drew closer, raising my hand to his lips and kissing my knuckles. A chill passed through my blood and I smiled, shifting Henry better in my arms, his fingers patted to my hair loose over my shoulders.  
"And who is this?" Charles asked, his head tilted and his eyes focused on Henry, the barest hint of sadness there and gone to his eyes.  
"I'm William," he butted in, holding out a hand and Charles uncertainly shook it, his eyebrows raised in silent question.  
"This is my brother, William. William this is Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk," I introduced, shifting Henry to my chest, his eyelashes fluttered to my neck. Williams eyes widened in horror, his lips parted in shock and he quickly darted his gaze between me and Charles.  
"Forgive me, My Lord," he pleaded, dropping to a quick bow with his hand pressed to his chest. "I thought you were just a friend of my sisters, I had no idea …"  
"I am a friend of your sisters," Charles assured him, his arms folded behind him and pulled at his robes, tightening them along his sides. William raised his eyebrows, a proud smile to his lips and looked to me as if I had somehow made a great accomplishment.  
"Well, if you'll excuse me My Lord, Sister, Mouse Jr.," he lightly touched his fingers to the softness of Henry's hair, kissing the strands and stepping past to the stable where George still walked, Charles's horse led by his hand.  
"So how old is he?" Charles asked, his arms folded behind him and the toes of his boots disappeared and reappeared through the grass.  
"Four months," I answered, Henry pulled at my collar and his fingers grazed to the tops of my breasts, his fingernails dug to the skin. A pinch broke its way through at the sharpness of his nails and I wrapped his fist around my finger, the miniscule wrinkles embedded through his skin and imprinted to my own. "He's so beautiful it breaks my heart." I blushed at the sound of my own words and rested my head to his own, the scent of him burned through me and making me ache with an affection and love that went beyond any capacity I thought I could feel.  
"Now you know how the world feels about you," he said simply, a depth to his voice that barely eclipsed itself in his voice. Blush pressed itself hotly to my skin and I carefully raised my head to him, his words echoed through me with a stirring of embarrassment marred with a knowledge that I could never live up to them.  
"You're too kind," I professed, lowering my eyes again with my blush still burned to my cheeks. He laughed, the sound low on his lips as if something had amused him.  
"How is it at Court?" I wondered, the word "plague" ghosted on my tongue but the fear of it preventing me to speak it in words.  
"The Court is well, though there was a breakout of plague at Warwickshire," he explained, his arms fallen to his sides and dug through the fur lining of his cloak. "The King has suggested remedies to fortify ourselves and I brought you …" He trailed off and pulled out a pouch, tugging open the drawstrings. "Core pills of Rasis." He dug his fingers through the velvet and held a pill out on his palm, the edges of it rounded and hardened like a button. "And this infusion." He held the herb between his thumb and palm and reached back into his cloak to remove a flask, the lid of it silver and lit by the sunlight along the rim."Concocted by the King himself." I reached for the flask, the detailing off the metal roughened under my fingers.  
"And these will … protect against the plague?" I asked uncertainly, Henry patting his fingers over my collar for the flask.  
"They should," he assured me, dropping the pill back into the pouch and holding it out to me.  
"Thank you," I murmured, the softness of the velvet drawn up between my fingers and yielded and imprinted to the rounded surface of the flask. He closed his fingers over my own, holding the flask and pouch to my palm and freezing in his movements, like a thousand hearts under my skin and hummed in the same beats.  
"Charlotte?" Grace asked and Charles's hand fell from mine and I turned to see her stepping down the hill with the darkened folds of her gown folded and crushed over the grass. A twist collapsed itself in my chest, her face solemn and the sunlight crinkled through her hair like a liquid gold.  
"Sister," I greeted, shifting Henry in my arms and the weight of the flask and pouch fallen to my side and imprinted to the fabric of my skirt. She stopped inches from us, the grass still clung to her hem and faded into the darkness, only visible through the roughened cut of their blades.  
"Grace, I believe you have met Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk?" I began uncertainly, the words trembled on my tongue and broken in my chest.  
"Yes, once," Grace answered, her arms politely folded across her front and she turned her gaze to Charles. "Your Grace."  
"My Lady," he professed, bowing respectfully and the move clattering along the jeweled chain hung at his necklace. He re stood and an awkward sort of silence fell, prickled along my skin and only interrupted by Henry sucking on his clenched fists.  
"Mother says that supper is almost ready," Grace finally spoke, turned to me and her fingers delicately woven together with her nails pressed carefully to her skin.  
"Of course, Charles would you like to join us?" I asked, turned to him and the move catching my skirt along my legs, Henry still sucking on his wrinkled fists and his face pressed to my shoulder.  
"Forgive me but I must be back to Court," he apologized, his gaze again found with mine and the sunlight glinting over his shortened hair to bronze their strands. He took my hand still holding the flask and pouch and raised it to his lips; his breath ghosted over my skin like a breeze trembled over still waters to ripple them. "Ladies." He ducked his head and turned in a spin of his cloak, the sound of his footsteps crushed to the grass. I shifted Henry on my hip, the wetness of his lips against my collar and turned to Grace, a look to her eyes like she saw and knew something that I never truly could.  
_… The Plague has gotten worse and I have found myself confined to my rooms until the worst is over. Everyone at Court is in a frenzy like they are unsure what to do with themselves, rumors are everywhere and it is difficult to find truth to any of them. The only comfort I confess in is that I know that you and your son are safe as it is my greatest desire to one day meet him and love him in the sure way that I shall someday love my own son. Protect and care for yourself as if you would care for my heart and you shall do so. With the greatest of affections from your sister.  
Anne  
_ I folded down the crease of the page, the words darkened through the transparency of the paper that the light drew itself through. Plague. The words thickened through my mind like a poison and froze its way through my veins. I ran my finger over the corner, the slivered edge rasped through my ears and along my skin in a cringe. I carefully folded the pages and set them to the table, standing so my gathered skirt collapsed to the carpet in a stir of dust along the pattern. I stepped over to the cradle and knelt by its side, Henry burrowed into the blanket with the tip of his thumb caught wetly between his lips. My heart ached so rawly I thought it would break and bleed through me, drowning me in a love so deep that it fell and stained through my fingertips. I reached out and ran my finger over his knuckles, barely pressed through his skin and he nuzzled his head deeper into the blanket, the fold of it collapsed over the side of his face.  
"I will never let anything happen to you," I murmured, my chin rested to the wood of the rail and the edge of it dug into my skin to line it with its imprint. "As long as I shall live no harm shall come to you."  
I twisted the apple on its stem, the green of it catching a sheen along the sunlight and breaking from where it hung and to my hand. I wiped it's edge on the folds of my skirt and handed it to Father, his wrinkled fingers running around the smoothness of its surface.  
"Thank you," he murmured and bit into its skin, the sound burst crisply in the air and stained to his lips.  
"You're welcome, Father," I replied, stepped from the wooden ladder and to the grass, the feel of it collapsed and gathered under my shoes.  
"It seems that I cannot do things as I used to," he spoke in quiet regret, his arms folded behind him with the apple still collapsed, his boots fading footsteps to the grass. "My bones are getting too old for me."  
"Never," I assured him, to all the world and my eyes still the most handsome man that had ever been. He smiled faintly, the touch of it wrinkled to his cheeks and coughed roughly. My own smile faded and I linked my arm through his, my fingers touched to his sleeve as if to my eyes and heart it was now known how strong and yet fragile he had become.  
"Thank you," he responded, biting again into the apple and the juice of it prickled to the hairs of his beard. I nodded, my skirt kicked out by my feet and along the grass in a lush movement.  
"Father may I … ask you something?" I asked, a thought ghosted to the back of my mind that always hung like a memory or dream I couldn't quite grasp.  
"Of course," he answered, his throat cleared like rusted metal crunched and I tightened my grip to his sleeve.  
"Before I left for Court you said … you said that one day that I would be …," I paused on the words frozen and danced to my tongue, the fear they caused sliced downwards through my throat like rusted blades. I licked my lips and swallowed the words like they were glass raw and cut. "…More powerful then the Queen of England. Why did you say that?" I looked over at Father and his shoulders sunk, a weight crushed to them and he in a second looked a hundred years older.  
"The Cook, George came to me and told me of a dream he had once … of you," he began, his words rasped and broken and he paused, clearing his throat and his eyes downcast. "Of a Queen, bowing before you and the whole of England followed. Your hands stained with the blood of all the hearts you held, all the man who sacrificed in your name and for your love … All for you." His words sunk themselves through my chest, blackening through my veins like a poison and I swallowed the feel caught and unnatural. I licked my lips and trembled, a terror suddenly gripped and tensed through my entire body and breaking me down to my knees. The grass broke under me and I dug my fingers through their blades in desperation to grip some sort of reality in a dream like world and future where his words might have a possible and terrible truth.  
"Daughter?" He asked, turned back and his fingers reached out for me, catching along the sunlight twisted around them. I looked up at him, every part of me raw and hurting in a terror beyond comprehension. His kind eyes gazed down at me and the sunlight burned its touch around his face in a memory faded around my finger tips of years ago in my childhood. When I did not know true love or true terror and when everything could be solved or broken on the will of my father.  
"I am alright," I promised, reached for his hands and tightening my grip upon them. "I am alright." He smiled and I re-stood, my fingers still held to his sleeve and the grass broken until my shoes as we continued to walk.  
_… I find myself most wretched in these last days of late. The Plague is now everywhere and I have been sent home to Hever with my family until it abates … I find that I cannot breathe sometimes, the weight of everything crushing me until I am left in ashes beneath it. I can trust almost no one now and everywhere I walk I can feel eyes on me, judging me and forever seeking my downfall … If only I could see you again and hear your words of comfort as I can find none of my own. I am drowning dear Charlotte, and everyone is watching and judging as I do so …  
_ Henry batted at the page, his fist closed around the corner and tugging it with his forehead creased. I smiled and gently pried it from his hands and folded the papers together, the words darkened and blurred. I set my hands under his arms and lifted him to my lap where he settled and dug his fingers to my bodice and twisting his fingers through the fabric.  
"He's getting grabby isn't he?" William asked, his elbow leaned to the grass and his fingers pulling apart the blade.  
"Just a little," I agreed, tucking the letter beneath me and holding him tighter to my chest, his unsteady legs balanced to my knee. He shrugged with difficulty and sat, digging his fingers through his hair and his face creased as if in sudden pain.  
"Are you alright?" I asked, my heart stopping at the look and he forced a smile, smoothing the edges of his face clear.  
"Yes, just the heat," he insisted, pressing the grass to his lips and blowing on it. The sound screeched and Henry giggled, pressing his legs deeper to my knee and I kissed the top of his head to hide my own smile.  
"Huh … I used to be able to do it," William remarked sadly, tossing the blade aside so it fluttered restlessly to the hillside. "I blame the grass." I grinned wider, pressing my nose to Henry's head and inhaling the scent, a breeze rustled through his hair and pressing them against my cheek.  
"Hello Grace," William loudly greeted and I raised my head, Grace standing next to him with the breeze twisted along her hem. I swallowed the dryness suddenly coated to my tongue and she stared down at me sadly, the edges of her trembled as if she were breaking from the inside.  
"Grace?" I asked, her name tensed on my tongue and a terror stirred inside me at whatever could cause her grief.  
"May I speak with Charlotte alone, brother?" She asked, turned to him and a strand of hair tangled in the sunlight and breeze.  
"Of course," he declared, pulling himself to his feet and swaying in the move. He paused for a moment and my heart froze with him and he turned to flash me an uneasy grin before starting off up the hill. Grace sat next to me, her skirt billowed on the grass and the hem gathered in the wind. Henry bent in my lap and grasped for it, pulling at the darkened fabric and tugging it between his fingers.  
"No, no," I murmured, untangling his fingers and pulling him back to my lap with his palms beaten flatly to my knees.  
"It's alright," she quietly assured me and I raised my eyes to her, her words clipped in the air like they had somehow lost their way in her voice. I nodded, brushing my fingers through Henry's hair and kissing his temple, his fingers now tightened to my skirt. I glanced up at her again, her eyes sadly lowered to Henry and thoughts danced through them that I couldn't piece to any word that I could now or ever know.  
"He's beautiful," she smiled, reaching out for him and his fingers dug into hers and wriggling it with his brow creased.  
"Thank you," I answered, running my touch through his wisped hair, the strands soft and yielding under my fingers. He let go of Grace's hand and fell back to my lap, his fingers again clutched to my skirt.  
"I am not returning to Court," she said suddenly and I looked up at her, her words heavily sunk and torn through me.  
"What? Why not?" I asked in sudden near panic, the thought of Court without her a sudden emptiness with the faded possibilities cut of her presence. She dug her fingers into the grass and broke their blades in her hands, their touch staining her palms.  
"Look at me, Charlotte really look at me," she quietly pleaded, her eyes raised and their edges tinted pink. I scanned over her face, the deep blue liquid to her eyes, the golden twist of her hair and the dust of freckles pressed to her face … every detail carved and dedicated to the name of her own perfection.  
"You're perfect," I professed, breathing the words and the intensified honesty behind them. She smiled at the words as if they reminded her of a joke that used to make her laugh.  
"I have been to court for seven years, Charlotte and what do I have to show for it?" She asked, her head turned and the sunlight curled its shadows through her hair and along her shoulders. "And look at you … at Court for less than a year and befriended to the King's best friend and Mistress, even spoken to the King himself. And now you have a lover and a child and … and I have nothing. Nothing to show for it and no place for it to take me. It's always been like that … you've always been the favorite. Even betrothed before me. And for a time I let my jealousy get the best of myself and now … now I see that you are not to blame." I stared at her, her words and what lay behind them twisted through me with sadness and a sense of how I was to blame for it.  
"I am sorry," I said quietly, the words too hollow for what I truly wanted to say and yet didn't know words for. She shook her head with a smile that glittered with tears frozen to her eyes.  
"It's not your fault Charlotte, you are my sister and I love you and I am at fault for thinking I could stop," she assured me kindly, her smile wrinkled to my eyes and I felt a burst in my chest like a rush poisoned through my veins. I lowered my eyes; tears filled to them and tried to hold back the feel like a damn broken loose inside of me. Her hand laid itself to my hand, wiping a tear away and she pulled me into her arms, her face buried to my hair. I tightened my grip into her back and held onto her, Henry struggled between us and feeling like I had almost lost her and yet turned to find her in my arms all along.  
Thomas's breath stirred at the hair of the base of my neck, pressing itself along my spine and sending shivers through my entire body like it was boiling my blood. I nestled my face deeper to the pillow, his arm slung around my waist and his fingers absentmindedly twisted through mine. Henry gurgled from the cradle across the room and I suppressed a smile to my lips, the sense of utter tranquility playing itself through me like the dying notes of a peaceful song … A scream shattered the air and I sat up in a panic, the sound pumped through my veins and weighing me down.  
"What …?" Thomas began, sitting up and his curls twisted and disheveled from sleep. My heart rate increased itself and I pulled back the quilt and stepped to the coldness of the wooden floor hung with mornings chill. I pulled myself around the bed frame and to the door, Thomas's footsteps echoed behind me as I followed. Sobs sounded through the hallway and I raced down the hallway, the carpet slid underneath my feet and whatever lessons I had been taught about not running gone and forgotten in my panic. I fell into step by William's bedroom, the door opened and Mother collapsed to the rug with her arms clutched to her chest and her face rent in an agony beyond what I knew. No …  
"Mother?" I asked, the words broken in my throat and she only shook her head, the move stunted and her hair twisted and stuck to her tear stained cheeks. I rushed past her to the door and pushed it open, Grace frozen by the bed post and her stance broken as if in shock; her eyes widened and glittered with tears. William lay on the bed, the sheets twisted around him and his eyes open and staring, his chest frozen and deprived of its breaths. Everything slowed down, everyone passed through an ice and melted back to life in a pained drawn out action …  
"No!" I screamed, everything shattered inside me and I fell, the impact crashed and broken through me and my fingers dug to the door frame, holding onto it and the bite of wood under my nails a reminder of what was too painfully and terrible real. Thomas fell to his knees behind me and pulled me to his chest and I fought him, digging my fingers against him to pull away because if he tried to comfort me, reassure me in some way that it was real and William was really gone …  
"No, No!" I screamed, pulling away from him but everything inside me torn and weakened, tears falling down my cheeks and stained to my nightgown, William's smile and laughter, his everything shredding at me from the inside to leave me a bloody broken mess. "No! No!" He dug his fingers into my arms and I buried my face to his chest, my screams muffled and everything that had once been beautiful and wonderful to the world now gone in a collision in all that was ugly and terrible …  
Henry nuzzled himself to my breast, his fingers grasping to the ties that held it shut and pulling at them in absent minded care. I gently ran my fingers down his cheek, quietly soothing him and my eyes froze to the window, the tree branch lightly tapped to the glass. _"…And the Ghosts tap on your window before they get you as a warning of what's to come ... "_A tear rolled itself down my cheek and faded to my collar and against the softened pink. Everything inside me felt so raw, so broken … as if all I was before was only a pained memory to who I was now. Empty. Broken. Henry fussed, his fingers batted to my breast and I pressed my lips to his head, closing my eyes and inhaling the scent of him and the love he made me feel that had so tenderly retraced it's way inside me. The door creaked open and footsteps pressed their sound to the floorboards. Thomas stepped beside me and ghosted his lips to my hair, hovering where he stood and I closed my eyes at the feel, the sweetened reminder of him …  
"You have a letter," he murmured and I opened my eyes, turning to him and my face stung with the crease of tears dried to my cheeks.  
"From who?" I asked, Henry batting at my fingers and lightly sucking on the tip of my thumb.  
"George Boleyn," he answered, holding out the letter to me, the wax seal creased to the page. I carefully took the paper and gently lifted Henry to Thomas's arms. Henry fussed at the move, his eyes inflamed sadly before burying his face in Thomas's neck and holding himself there. I stood and pulled apart the page, sniffing lightly and scanned over the untidy words. _  
… I would not write to you if it were not in dire need but Anne has fallen ill from the Sweat and is said to not have much life allowed to her … _The letter fell from my hands and I closed my eyes, my insides burned and inflamed with a pain beyond what I could take. No, please no.  
"What is it?" Thomas asked, concern outlining his words and I turned to him, opening my eyes.  
"I am going to Hever," I said simply, sniffing again and spinning in my skirts to my chest of clothing.  
"What?" Thomas demanded, following after me in pronounced steps. "Why?"  
"Anne is ill," I explained, pulling open the lid and digging through the fabric, my fingers found to my cloak. "I must go to her."  
"No," Thomas pressed, setting Henry to his cradle and the shift of it creaked to the floorboards. "You cannot."  
"Why not?" I demanded, anger burned in my voice and I swung the cloak around my shoulders in a flurry that stirred the air. "I already lost William, I refuse to lose Anne as well."  
"No," Thomas insisted, turning me in his grip and his hands clenched to my shoulders, a desperation to his hold. "The Sweat is dangerous and if you were to catch it …" He trailed off, his eyes broken with desperation and need that broke inside of me.  
"I have no choice. I will not lose Anne and if I must then I will see her once more," I pleaded, my fingers laced to his sleeves and I pressed myself closer and to his lips. I drew away, my fingers touched to the hardened lines of his face. "You cannot stop me." I pulled my grip from his and to the cradle, grazing my lips to his head and closing my eyes to imprint myself with the feel as if it were the last time. I broke myself away and past Thomas, his fingers searched for my arm and to the door, my cloak clipping its frame as I left.   
I pressed myself through the door, my cloak tangled to the frame and George close behind on my heels. The Doctor looked up from where he knelt by the bed, his face creased and wrinkled with worry and my eyes found to Anne laying on the bed. Her eyes were closed, her darkened hair matted over her face and her breast raised and fallen in shallow breaths. Oh no … The floor seemed to lose itself beneath me and I gripped at the frame. I took a deep breath and licked my lips, stepping to her side and pressing my fingers to her neck. Her skin burned beneath me, sweat drenched and pressed to her collarbone and staining the lace of her collar.  
"Anne?" I whispered, running my fingers through her tangled hair and a desperation pulling itself through my skin. "Anne, its Charlotte?" She didn't move, her breast fallen in the only reminder that she was still alive. I took a deep breath and stood, everything dizzy around me and swept the cloak from my shoulders and over her loosely.  
"George, get me some water," I urged, tossing the words over my shoulder and sitting by her side, the sheets tucked and stained around her. I pressed my fingers along her neck, untangling the hair from her neck to let them fall more loosely. I glanced up at George, still standing by the door and his face trembled as if he were breaking. "George! Quickly." He nodded and bolted from the room, his footsteps echoed through the halls. I turned back to her, pulling her hair away from her shoulders and a cloth suddenly hung by my side. I looked over at the Doctor, his face solemn and the cloth pressed tightly to his hand and out to me.  
"Thank you," I murmured, taking it from him and pressing it along her neck and collar, the scent of sweat hung like a poisoned evil in the air. She barely stirred at the feel, her eyelashes quivered across her cheek. "It's alright, Anne. I'm here. I promise. I'm here."  
I smoothed the dampened cloth over her brow, the coldness leeched to my palm and in contrast to the heat of her skin. She stirred under the feel, swallowing and the sound caught and pained in her throat. I turned back to the bowl, the moonlight cast along my skirt and pressed the cloth into the water and wrung it out so the water droplets fell and rippled. I turned back to her and ran it along her collarbone and along the collar of her nightgown, her skin hung and caught with the moonlight to make it appear as it if glowed. I froze my movements, the cloth dampened to my skirt and watched her for any more sign of life, anything to reassure me that she was still here and the world was still capable of greatness and beauty that went beyond words … She shifted again, a pained gasp broken to her lips and I bit my lip to keep from crying out in my shared feel of it. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply and the scent of sickness pressured along the insides of my nose and throat. _Our Father who Art is Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name, I pray and Beseech to you in your mercy and in your love to spare Anne. To find warmth and love to her name and seek your fatherly hand to her forehead and find in you pity to Spare her life. In all the Greatness that you do and all the love that you do bear, Save Anne and in doing so save my heart and my soul and all that matters to me, Spare my poor Sister … _She moaned lightly in her stupor and I opened my eyes, the moonlight caught to the base of her throat and glittered in the hollow. I licked over my dried lips and pressed the cloth again to her neck, the dampness run along its curve.  
_…Of a Queen bowed before you and all of England followed … _A hand touched itself to my hair and I buried my face deeper to the quilt, sleep so rent and torn through me that I weighted me down in its pull. The fingers touched again, gentle and softened through my strands. _  
_"Charlotte …," the voice spoke and my eyes snapped open and I lifted my head in a move that tightened itself along my neck. Anne smiled faintly down at me, her skin stark deeper to the darkened fall of her hair and her eyes pale and near lifeless in contrast to their once luster. And still in all certainty the most beautiful woman to the entire world. My face broke into a breathless smile and I rushed to my feet, pressing my lips to her forehead and tasting the Sweat that still stained to her skin. She lightly touched her fingers to my chin and I rushed to the doorway, pulling it open with fervor that tensed through my entire being.  
"George! Lord Boleyn! Come quick!" I called, my footsteps echoed to the steps to the hall. George turned from where he stood, his fingers paused to his lips and he bolted to my side, his fingers tensed to my arms.  
"What? What happened?" He demanded, his eyes broken in terror.  
"Nothing, she's alright, she's awake," I assured him, unable to breath and wanting to cry with every part of me. His face broke into a grin and he tightened his hand into mine and pulled me back to Anne's room.  
"Papa!" He called behind him as he dragged me back through the door to where Anne still lay, weakened but alive.  
"George," she murmured, allowing a smile as he lay himself across the end of the bed with a grin to his face. Footsteps broke to the floor as Lord Boleyn rushed into the room and fell to his knees by the bed, pressing his lips to Anne's hand.  
"Praise be to God," he professed, pulling himself away and delicately brushing his fingers through her hair with a widened smile to his face. "You know what you've done child? You've risen from the dead. Now you can see the King again. It can be just as before." She turned away from him, her eyes hollow and their gaze fallen to mine as if she were drowning and silently begging me to save her.  
"Lord Boleyn why don't you send a letter to the King?" I attempted, the words uncertain on my lips and he turned as if just noticing I were there. "I am sure he would be most happy to hear the news." He scanned his eyes over my face before he let the words settle and nodded.  
"Of course, the King will want to know," He said, saying the words as if they were his own and bolted from the room with a clatter of footsteps. I released my hand from George's grip and stepped around to Anne's side, sitting beside her on the mattress and sheets still hung with sweat.  
"Thank you," she breathed and I pulled her into my arms, her face buried to my shoulder and her fingers grazed along my hand holding her hair. I nodded and pressed my lips to her head and closed my eyes, her eyelashes grazed to my skin and her breaths shallow to my shoulder, my heart sang and near whole with the reassurance and the knowledge that dug through me that she was alive. _Thank you God … Thank you …  
_ I brushed my fingers along the jaw of the horse, the breeze caught and twisted to my skirt and tugging in the move. Anne running her fingers over her skirt and the breeze tugged at the veil hung around her face. Hoof beats echoed and I looked up, a horse rode to the stone ledge with the King on its saddle, his face alight and sung as he tossed himself down from the horse, his actions frozen as his eyes fell to Anne. She rose from where she sat, the move un-tucking her skirt and she stared at him as if in a trance. He tied his horse to the ledge and she slowly stepped towards him, her arms outstretched and the sun imprinting itself along the side of her face and through the black lace of her veil. He rushed around the ledge to her, a look of indescribable happiness to his face and she broke and fell into his arms. He dug his fingers through her veil to pull it loose from her hair, pulled deeper into their kiss and her fingers clasped at his face. I suppressed a smile, the world gone to them and in all that it existed were just her and him, their beauty and their love …


	9. 1 8 Truth and Justice

Disclaimer: Unfortunately this is the last chapter I have written and it's not even fully finished. But I'll post it anyway. I am working on the story and organizing and rearranging details and hopefully I'll have chapters again soon. Until then … Enjoy!

**1.8 Truth and Justice (21)**

_ … Henry is beginning to walk and is stumbling all over the place now and special care is needed in order to prevent him from falling down the stairs. He is also beginning to say words though they do not sound quite as I am sure he intended. I believe he misses you, he sits in your room as if he is searching for something and all of his words sound like he is attempting to say Mama …  
_I stilled my fingers on the page and closed my eyes, the words pressed to my skin and the sweetened scent and memory of Henry ghosted through my grasp. My heart ached in my chest and I took a deep breath that hurt, opening my eyes and again confronted with the elegantly simplistic details of the apartment. A pained reminder that I was back at Court and Henry was miles away from me learning how to walk without me to guide his steps. I lowered my eyes to the pages again and took a breath that pressed itself inside my chest and to the faded blue of my bodice.  
_… It's lonely here without you, without William as well. It is like the halls are empty, stolen of whatever life and joy there was once to them. Mother and Father move through them like ghosts themselves, only finding joy in Henry whenever he attempts to say a word or climb a piece of furniture. He is our only consolation I confess, the one thing that can bring a near smile to our faces and some peace to our hearts. My only wish now remains that you may find something that can provide that for you while you are at Court as God would not be so cruel as to leave you unhappy. In closing and in sweetened reminder Henry has left his mark of love for you which I hope shall find you some comfort if only in small supply. _  
My eyes fell to the bottom of my page, my fingers traced along the edge and imprinted over top of an untidy scrawl that barely seemed to fall into the attempt of the letter "H." I bit my lip, tasting a bitterness of my tongue and fingered the scrawl with a longing that burned me into ashes inside and out.  
Music played in an undercurrent under the chatter and rhythmic tapping of feet across the dance floor, the sheen of it clipped and blurred beneath skirts that fanned itself out around the ladies legs.  
"Lady Anne," a gentleman greeted, removing his hat from his head and bowing deeply, his companions following in fluid suit. She nodded in response, a smile on her lips and the flickered candlelight buried into the gold and bronze of her dress. Her train trailed over the floorboards in a drag over the faded light painted to them and I kept my eyes forced to its hem least I step on it and somehow bring embarrassment and disgrace to us both. It swished over the floor and I lifted my head as she turned to look over her shoulder at me, the candlelight setting itself through her curls and dragging them darker over her shoulders.  
"Charles Brandon is staring at you," she murmured, the shadows from the candlelight tracing itself along her face and tenderly down her neck, a small smile to her lips that creased against her cheek. I raised my eyes to the tables where Charles stood, his hands folded behind him and the shadows burned into the deepened red of his shirt and glittered along the jeweled chain at his throat. He smiled when he saw me looking back, dropping into a bow and rising so the chain shifted and the candlelight ran its touch through the folds of his shirt and paling it pink. I looked back to Anne and she winked at me, stepping forward to Lord Boleyn and her hem whispering over the floor in a rasp audible over the music and continued footsteps. I turned to pass her, my skirts pressing to the edges of hers and stepped after to where Charles still stood, a grin still plastered to his face.  
"Charlotte," he greeted kindly, raising my hand to his lips and catching against the thickened cuff of my dress.

"Charles," I answered, dropping to a curtsey and my dress creased in the shift.  
"Are you enjoying yourself?" He asked, his fingers dropped from mine and again folded behind him with the move rippled along the hem of his shirt.  
"I am," I assured him, glancing at the dance floor with the various couples blended and blurred across it in clips of skirts fanned over the wood. "Thought I must confess … I miss my son much more than I thought I could bear." I raised my eyes back to him, a pain digging itself between my ribs and pressing its mark along them that strained in my breaths. His smile ached in sympathy, holding out his arm and I slid mine through it, my fingers pressed and dug to his sleeve.  
"It's only natural," he promised, the shifted skirts nearly catching to mine and he drew me closer to the tables, the men again bowing as he passed and murmuring his name in reverence. "Coming from someone as wonderful as you, even more so." I lowered my eyes, blush shivered up my spine and the music dulled in the back of my thoughts like a softened afterthought.  
"Ah, here we are," he announced, his words sudden and I raised my eyes to see us standing at the edge of the disheveled dance floor and at Princess Margaret's side. The candlelight bronzed through her curls and darkened the elegantly hung details of her gown, burnished over the metal edges of her goblet. "Margaret, I would like you to meet Charlotte Duchford. Charlotte, I would like you to meet my wife, Margaret." He gestured between the two of us and my fingers fell from his arm and pinched between my skirts as I curtsied, a sudden and sharpened panic burned in my chest at my sudden uncertainty at how to address her.  
"Princess," I attempted, rising and tasting the title on my tongue with my hesitation as to whether or not it was the right one.  
"Please, call me Margaret," she welcomed, her thumb running over the thickened edge of the goblet and unease sharpened in its lines along her neck. I nodded slowly, at a loss of the contrast between her words and tone and she turned away from me, the move drawing itself tighter along the curve over her neck. I followed her gaze and found it falling upon Anne and the King, her back to him and his lips pressed intimately to her hair, the candlelight dotted over them and leaving them in a near unearthly haze. Princess Margaret narrowed her eyes and sipped deeply from the goblet, her fingers clutched to its rim in near desperation and she withdrew it from her lips, swallowing harshly and her breasts heaved as if she was suddenly breathless. The music faded to a stop, everyone clapping in uncoordinated sound and I followed after, my sleeves collapsed and pressed in the rapid movement.  
"May I have this dance?" Charles asked, his hand held out to me and the candlelight burned and dug into the lines of his palm. I raised my eyes to Princess Margaret who simply nodded; the goblet again hovered to her lips and inhaling the spiced scent deeply. I stepped over to the dance floor; concern for Princess Margaret flitted through my thoughts and took my place beside Anne. She tossed a grin at me, her curled hair fallen over her breasts with the King positioned in front of her with his eyes frozen and traced over her face. The music started to play and I lay my back opposite to Charles, my arms held out and my fingers linked and pressed to his as I started to turn after his steps and him after mine. He grinned down at me, the candlelight reshaping the shadows bronze and gold over his face and striking me with how remarkably handsome he was. My skirts caught after me as I turned to spin in the opposite direction, Anne's skirts briefly brushed to mine and the steps of the Kings dangerously close to mine, lighting a fear along my skin that I may misstep and bring harm to him and disgrace to myself. I dropped my arms and paced closer to Charles, pressing up on my toes as I spun away from him in a move that cut and creased my skirts around my legs. I again spun back, my toes ached under the pressure and dropped into a curtsy, my thoughts pressed with the next steps and edged with the fear that I might forget them. I took a step forward on my toes, my heart beginning to throb in my chest at the exertion and fell back, my arms raised and my sleeves gathering at my elbows. I took his hands and he lifted them over my head in a fold around my chest that pressed me briefly against him before spinning me out in a softened blur of my skirts. My vision shifted dizzyingly and he pulled me back into his chest and back out again with only his fingers barely touched to mine like the collision of crystallized dust in the sunlight.  
My skirts dragged themselves on a rasp over the grass, my footsteps crunched after and my shadow reshaping itself restlessly over the ground.  
"The King wants me to go to Rome," Thomas spoke suddenly, his eyes squinted against the sunlight and his fingers re-tangled through mine. I raised my eyes to him, his curls twisted silver in the sunlight and detailed along the ruff of his collar.  
"Why?" I asked, tightening my fingers through his and a throbbed pang inside my stomach as if I already missed him.  
"He wants me to speak with His Holiness and convince him to grant the King his annulment," he answered, glancing down at me and his eyes creased softly. I nodded, pulling my skirt away from my side as it tangled along my leg and letting it fall back in a crease to the grass.  
"How long will you be gone?" I asked, my fingers lost along the fold and my voice catching at the broken thought of him having to leave me.  
"A month, maybe more," he calculated, the scruff along his cheeks faded in the light ashen and the edge of his cloak rasped to my side. I nodded slowly, trying to gather the thought of him gone but the shards of it fallen between my fingers to leave them cut and bleeding.  
"I'll miss you," he said quietly and I raised my eyes to him, a breeze catching a strand of hair over my vision and he attempted a small smile that fell short of touching his eyes. His words stirred like the just born flames of a fire and I lifted our clasped hands to my lips, gently grazing a kiss over his. My lips tingled under the feel and I let our hands fall, leaning my head to his arm and my other hand pressed to his sleeve, my fingers lost in the darkened fabric.  
A branch tapped eerily to the window, its shadow stretched and twisted over the rug and embedded through its embroidery. I pulled the quilt tighter around my shoulders and dug my fingers into the edge of it, a childish fear suddenly twisted and pressured in my chest at the faint memories of ghosts and monsters lost in the night. _"…And the Ghosts tap on your window before they get you as a warning of what's to come ... "_ I tightly closed my eyes, a pressure suffocating in my chest at the memory of William, his details and words entwined like smoke through my fingers that faded and vanished when I tried to clutch them closer. I took a deep breath, curling my fingers through my pillow and bringing my legs closer beneath me under the sheet so my nightgown gathered and tangled around them. His eyes swam through my thought, frozen and staring to the ceiling and his skin so stark in contrast against them. I buried my face to my pillow, the feel smothered against my eyes and a damp burn pressed to them. Oh, William how I miss you …

_… The business with His Holiness has not been going as I or the King had hoped. He says that he will pray for a resolution of the King's annulment but will not commit personally to changing them in any manner. I can only presume how the King will react to this and bring greater pressure and urgency to His Great Matter. In time perhaps it may be resolved in England but until the agents of Rome commit themselves properly I fear it may be a losing battle … __  
_I let the letter fall between my fingers, the firelight stretching the words across the page and linking their edges together. I leaned back in the seat, the move rustling my skirt over my legs and casting its distorted shadow and making it tremble across the carpet. The words replayed themselves through my thoughts, my uncertainty and lack of understanding sharpening them and leaving my mind raw with their impact. The door creaked open and I lifted my eyes to see the servant stepping inside, a metal plate and goblet balanced in her hands and her gaze lowered to her task. She walked over to where I sat, setting them onto the table at my elbow and dropping into a curtsey, her fingers pinched to the folds of her skirt.  
"My Lady," she professed, re-standing and the firelight catching and sparking through the darkness of her eyes.  
"Wait …," I protested as she turned and she stopped, her eyes again lowered and her arms folded in front of her as if she were waiting for further instruction. "Please, sit." She raised her eyes, her eyebrows arched in her own confusion and she uncertainly turned to the chair and sat on its edge, her hands clasped in her lap. I refolded the letter and set it next to the plate, the hunk of bread and meat on its surface darkened to the firelight and making my stomach twist in my newly discovered hunger. "Are you hungry?" I gestured to the plate and her lips parted uneasily as if she were unsure how to respond.  
"No, My Lady. Thank you," she answered, her shoulders set back and stiffened with a sort of dignity and respect that uncomfortably prickled under my skin. I nodded, my fingers lined over the armrest and questions shattered through my mind as to how to proceed. My own sense of loneliness lined over my skin coldly and I licked my lips, possible questions and answers played over my tongue.  
"What is your name?" I attempted, smiling in warmth and she cleared her throat uncomfortably, adjusting herself in her seat.  
"Jane," she answered simply.  
"Jane, I'd like if we could be friends," I offered and the boldness of the offer curled hot and cold on my tongue as if uncertain of its own shape and weight.


End file.
